


calamity

by EatingUptheBoredom



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Homelessness, I picture bald macavoy for xavier but he sounds like patrick steward in my brain, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kidnapping, Like, Maybe More?? - Freeform, Mutant Politics, Mutant Powers, Mutants, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, You Decide, first class mutants are adults now, it’s like a committment, long chapters, picking and choosing what I like from the movies and comics, the timelines are made up and the points don't matter, this is a long fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:20:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 40,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26342524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EatingUptheBoredom/pseuds/EatingUptheBoredom
Summary: a non-mutant child born to radical mutant parents finds herself alone and homeless. as a last-ditch effort to get an education and formulate her own future, she asks Charles Xavier if she can live and learn at his school, unaware that there are powerful people searching for her for their own purposes.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

It seems pretentious, or overly dramatic, but I take a moment to pause as I approach the house. I know one way or the other, my life is about to drastically change.

It is a bit dramatic. There's nothing special about me that would make my small and meaningless life of any importance to anyone. I'll likely be forgotten; the people that once knew and cared about me will feel pain at my memory for a time, if at all, and then? Not even a memory. The six months I've spent living on the streets as a homeless vagrant has taught me how easily someone can slip into obscurity and perhaps into something worse, something darker. Something darker than loneliness and relegated to the forgotten, the ignored? More likely than you think. It sometimes seems as though I only exist to myself and if I thought of myself at all, it would be as a cosmic joke. Being the butt of said joke, it was not often I found humor in it. Yet even I had to see the irony of my name--Star. The cosmic joke named after a celestial body.

Today the universe was having a good chuckle at my expense. Driven by desperation and loneliness, not to mention straight-up hunger, I'm seeking help from the last place on earth likely to give it to me, but I have nowhere else to try. I'd walked and taken the bus with my last few bucks of what I could beg or steal and now I found myself in picturesque Salem City, New York, both on my last hope and my last dime.

A ridiculous coward, afraid of everything and unable to face it or overcome it, it was perhaps more an act of fear than bravery to come to this. Running away from my problems seemed to be a specialty of mine but I was at the end of my rope. Desperation doesn't count as bravery, not in any way that felt meaningful to me. Aside from being alone and vulnerable, I am someone planning to lie to and take advantage of someone else's compassion and caring, and that made me despicable in my own eyes. 

I can justify it to myself, when I try. I've been shuffled from one foster family to another in the six months before walking away and giving the independent lifestyle a try. Most folks who took in mutant spawn such as myself were in it for the extra money for "hard to place" cases such as mine, or the occasional wackjob that was looking to exploit mutant powers for their own gain. You'd think they'd screen these people better. Sure I'd had a couple of nice families, but whatever it took to be a good foster kid I seemed to lack because it never lasted no matter what I tried. I tried keeping my head down and focusing on school, I tried being helpful, quiet, cheerful. Could never quite get it right, I guess.

I was raised in a small mutant population of about 150 people called Community. My parents had been part of a fringe but devout group that skirted outright belief in mutant supremacy but yeah, they believed in mutant supremacy. They didn't want to harm saps (as in homo _sap_ ians, but they didn't mingle with them either and the charismatic leader of our little band, Mannik, was a diplomatic and persuasive person. Everyone in Community loved him. He made no secret that his charm was his mutant gift but heaven knows what else he was-- boundless energy, no need to sleep, I heard. A few of the more fervered members of Community occasionally ran afoul of the government, who didn't look kindly on any kind of _organization_ among mutant kind. That kind of thing starts to alarm the saps, worrying them about uprisings and world domination, if you can believe it. 

My parents were among the more persuaded, shall we say. The ended up in prison during some stupid protest or riot, depending on whose story you believe. It might have started out as one and collapsed into the other but the results were the same-- me in the hands of strangers who couldn't care less about me and were relieved when I wasn't their responsibility anymore. I took care of myself. I still do. 

It's not that my parents were terrible people but there's no denying I was their biggest disappointment. A big tenant of Community belief was that mutants were _meant_ to be superior and better, not like a defect like some people were claiming. Imagine buying into that heart and soul and then having a completely normal, un-mutated child. Quite the irony, right? The universe likes it's little jokes.

Not that they gave up on it. They took me to all kinds of specialists, and a good chunk of my childhood was spent seeing a mutant geneticist, Dr. Minde, who happened to specialize in mutant physiology and biology. When I was younger he told us I was a late bloomer because I for sure had the x-gene. As time went on and tests were run, he was eventually forced to admit that my parents had won a lottery chance-- I carried the gene but it didn't express anything in me. Latent, he called it. Pointless and worthless, I called it. 

Disappointment, my parents called it, though not to my face. They didn't have to. I could see it plain enough. But they had bigger problems, namely, Community did not allow saps among their ranks. Mutants only. Not only was I a disappointment, but I was also a liability; I could get them kicked out of the only place they felt safe and welcome. Their whole world was based there. Their jobs, when mutants couldn't find jobs, their home, when mutants couldn't find homes. Their closest friends, their bank, for heaven's sake. 

It's not like they were powerful mutants themselves. My mom has a green thumb. She can get anything to grow and thrive, and she was instrumental in keeping Community fed. Dad doesn't get muscle fatigue, meaning he’s basically a physical dynamo. Strong, sure, but could run, lift, whatever. He has to work out to be strong but there were basically no limits to what he can do if he put the work in. He doesn't obsess over it so he’s pretty much just the most in-shape person on the planet without being gross about it. He helped with tons of things around Community. They had to think about everyone they'd be letting down if they left.

To be fair they tried their best with me. But school got rough. I was bullied by the kids I'd grown up with, and even my teachers were uncomfortable and didn't seem to know how to stop it. I was something no one liked or wanted. I made things difficult. Even on my best behavior, I ended up in some kind of trouble all the time. 

They sent me away a while. To my mom's friend's aunt. She had cats. Like seriously nine cats, it was a bit much, but we were trying to figure things out what would be best for me and for them. They were considering finding me a boarding school, but with two known mutant parents they ran into a lot of barriers. They didn't have a lot of money. It was hard on them, I understand that. They brought me home a few months later, just shy of my fourteenth birthday, and said we'd just have to work it out that I stay there, rules be damned. I think Dr. Minde may have intervened with Mannik himself, because they arranged for me to do school at home and there was some hope people would just forget about me and leave me alone.

Then the protest happened and my parents were arrested. Without any family to take care of me, I was made a ward of the state. My parents were accused of terroristic acts and I was branded as a mutant even though I kind of really am not. The first of many times it Made Things Difficult. The nice social worker that worked with the Mutant Task Force that arrested my parents let me pack my bags before they locked down my house as part of an ongoing investigation. What, like my mom was going to grow plants someone to death? Or my dad bench press someone into submission? I didn't even get to say goodbye to them. Part of me was secretly glad I wasn't their problem anymore. I felt sure had they been able to find a way to get rid of me, they just might have taken it. 

I'm nothing to nobody. That's the truest thing about me.

Foster care, no word at all from my parents, and six months on the street only solidified that idea.

But it was untenable. I’m hungry, for one. I want to finish school, for another. I want to be something someday, some secretary or vet tech, I'm not reaching for the stars here, just trying to be pragmatic. Anything is better than what I currently am-- a filthy and useless nobody that could die and no one know the difference. I spend a lot of time in the library. There are some big ones in New York City and it’s a nice place to spend time. I learned a lot. I studied up on the world and mutants outside of what the teachers at Community had taught me. I learned about the powerful mutants in the news, names like Magneto and Angel and Storm and Wolverine.

I learned about a school, run by a gifted telepathic mutant named Charles Xavier. 

It took me a while, but eventually I thought about how nice it might be to go back to school. To have a bed to sleep in, a washing machine. 

Food.

I could usually get two meals a day, begging or scrounging through garbage. It's not that hard once you get used to it, lots of times things were still in a partial package. I picked a few pockets, but I'm not brave, and it only came to that once or twice. Terrified me every time. I got caught the last time and some lady screamed her head off at me and I almost didn't get away. That was when I started to think seriously about a new plan. It would be getting cold soon. I needed a new plan. The abandoned building I'd found to sleep in wasn't going to keep me warm in the winter.

So I think about this wonderful school all the articles talked about. A model of modern thinking. A safe place for mutant kids to learn and help with controlling their abilities. There were rich and powerful people heavily invested in protecting and supporting the school. It was exclusive, yes, but I was no worse off for trying, I wouldn't think. Maybe some little run away with parents in prison could go to a school like that, wouldn't _that_ be funny.

It's a dreadful plan and it has almost no chance of succeeding, but I'm more interested in the attempt than the success. To see something for myself that was in magazines and articles on the internet. To go back to a world that rejected me with a chance of fooling them into accepting me. Simple curiosity, boredom, desperation. A simple plan, I thought perhaps brilliant in its simplicity. I have to be careful, I have to be smart, but I can do it. I know what mutants sound like when they talk to each other.

It could work. It could.

Even if it's for a little while, it might be worth it. Or maybe they discover how badly I've been treated if they discover the truth and they let me stay anyway. They could _totally_ let me stay.

It's a long walk from the bus station to the school. It's on these expansive grounds in the middle of nowhere, miles from any big cities. It ends up taking me a lot longer than I planned, and it's kind of late in the day by the time I even get to the entrance of the school.

I feel a sick, heavy rock in my guts because I'm just walking into a place that, in all truth, I had no business being in. I wasn't gifted-- the sign on the gate clearly states that I'm entering "Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters" and I'm aware I'm not that. I'm nothing. I hate lying, I was never good at it, but I was never desperate before. I have to do this. 

I walk up to the large, ornate but sturdy-looking doors and push the doorbell.

I almost leave as soon as the bell sounds. I'm just a coward; I've never tried to be brave. I want a home, a chance at school, a place to live for more than a few days but everything tastes red and hot and all I see is my fear. My fear doesn't make me brave, I just freeze, unable to leave yet praying the door never opens, hoping it does, like a complete idiot.

Unfortunately, the door opens after not very long, like they don't want to keep people waiting. There's this perfectly ordinary-looking guy there, pretty old, you know, like in his thirties or something but he looks smart, and he looks nice. He takes in my hoodie and my dirty jeans and my backpack and I'm sure that's not a new sight for him because my parents would show me stories in the news all the time about runaway mutants rejected by their families, before when they could share that kind of thing with me, before they found out I was part of the world they hated. He doesn't look surprised or anything, just kind of questioning.

"Hello. Can I help you?" He says it in this like, overtly gentle and pleasant voice, like he's expecting me to be spooked, which okay I am.

"Uh--" I try swallowing a minute like I can swallow all my nerves and fear but I feel myself chickening out. Like, literally I can feel it--my knees are kind of weak like I'm relieved and it's because part of my brain has already figured out I can't do this and I'll just have to leave. "No, I think... I think I'm in the wrong place." I bend down and pick up my backpack and part of me is already trying to figure out how to politely leave without making it more awkward (what's the drill here... like, do I wave goodbye?) and part of me is already thinking about where to go and part of me isn't ready to give up but I got nothing. I'm not a brave person. I can't do it.

"Why don't you come in a minute?" So this guy opens the door more, kind of watching me. The thing is he does look nice, not just in a handsome way but in a kindness type of way. I have no idea who he is. I thought I was pretty familiar with most of the personnel at the school, I'd read as much as I could about it. I hesitate long enough without answering his question that it makes it awkward, but I decide just going in doesn't have to mean I'll stay. I can leave anytime. There's an at least 65% chance I can get fed, in any case, and since I'm starving I step forward into the house when he steps back to make room.

I'm curious how many other saps have seen inside the mansion. I mean, I know I'm not the only one. Charles Xavier is the poster boy for mutant-human alliances, but on the other hand, a lot of people fear and despise mutants as a threat to humanity, so they'd have to have some kind of security. I was just let in though, so maybe they let anyone in?

The house is overwhelmingly nice. Like the pictures but real, so. I notice this smell like something I recognize as a school smell, food and paper and books and ink and students with their shampoo and deodorant and kind of body odor. It actually calms me down a tiny bit, like this shred of familiarity; it felt a bit like Community.

"Are you hungry?" Again with the really gentle voice, which I'm definitely appreciating, to be honest. I must look as skittish and desperate as I feel. An ugly blotchy redness begins on my neck. Embarrassment burns within me, hot and prickly, but his consistent kindness sets me a little bit at ease. 

"Uh, yeah." I immediately flush, feeling that my _uh_ ing is annoying and irritating. I am hungry, it's true. I'm not starving, but when you really have to kind of guess when every meal might be and only probably 34% of the time actually find decent food and more often just kind of eat it because it's food but it's nasty, you are hungry most of the time and you take food when it's offered. There're places on the street where they feed the homeless but you really have to be careful. There are headhunters at those soup kitchens, people on the lookout for runaways, who get paid to inform on mutants. Which I'm not. Technically. But I'm guilty by association, guilty enough.

"This way." He kind of walks a little ahead of me but keeping me to his side not letting me trail too far behind. Probably smart, on his part; if he's assuming I'm a mutant (and why would I be here if I weren't), he has no idea what powers my disheveled and dirty appearance could be hiding. I try and take in the school, this place, the place I hope will be my home. There's a giant stained glass window that gives everything a warm light and this staircase and doorways everywhere like probably literally everything is made out of mahogany or something. It's super pretty. I'm suddenly hyperaware of my shoes. They're my mom's; when I had to hurry and grab stuff, in a fit of sentimentality I grabbed hers instead of mine and they're dirty because she was always in the dirt, and now all the dirt from the streets and they're too big on me. It's a tangible, visible reminder that I don't belong here in this beautiful and pristine place, that I'm contaminating it just by being here. There's this heat somewhere between my chest and my throat, all my anxiety, fear, and embarrassment, and I think again about leaving, then think again about food, and let myself be distracted by the luxurious building again.

It's huge; I can't even begin to see all the different wings and whatnot. But on the ground floor up ahead there's a kitchen and place to eat.

"You can have a seat." He gestures to this little table in the kitchen probably the cook uses to prep food because it has stools around it. I can't help it, I tug my hood down a bit more because there are definitely a few other people around. They kind of glance at me but don't pay me much attention, but I can tell they are definitely mutants. They have some of the features; different hair colors, certain body abnormalities, kind of subtle things but I can tell. I just can.

"My name is Hank." He offers his name and he's making me a sandwich, and I'm really aware he probably has better stuff to be doing. It's pretty late in the day, probably classes are over, but he must have stuff to do but he just keeps making a sandwich.

"Uh--" I flinch, sure again that he would find my verbal tick annoying. "I mean, Star." I see him pause for a split second when he hears my name and a paranoid part of me thinks he's heard of me but he probably is waiting for a last name but when I don't give him one he just nods a little and keeps making me food. There's fruit in a basket on the table and I pocket an apple. He offers me this sandwich of peanut butter and jelly and even chips and a pickle without saying a word but just watching me with a kind of understanding and sad look like I'm some sort of troubled youth or something.

"Thanks." It really is probably the best thing I've ever eaten but it sticks in my throat.

"You in some kind of trouble, Star?" Again with that really gentle voice, it makes this giant lump in my throat and I can honestly say I was about to cry just because he was being so nice to me. I squirm a bit in my seat, I don't want to deceive him or anyone, and again, I get the feeling I just needed to give up on my grand scheme. I can't tell you why all my grand plans fell on me like that at that moment. It was like this epiphany, and I suddenly realized I really actually could not do this. I couldn't lie.

I don't answer him a minute while I ate the rest of the sandwich. I eat the crust last. Hank didn't say anything and didn't keep staring at me, but kind of cleaned up or something but kept an eye on me.

"I think maybe I am," I admit but it comes out really quiet even though I don’t meant it too, I thought I was speaking in a normal voice but when the words tried to get around the lump in my throat they shrank down and the sound of them hurt my chest and I glance at Hank but I can't tell if he heard me or not. "No, I'm really sorry I bothered you, I don't think you can help me after all." I clear my throat and drank this milk he had given me as I ate. "Thanks for the sandwich, I really mean it. I think... I think I need to get going."

Hank nods a little and kind of shakes his head, like he understood but didn't agree with me. "Star I think we might be able to help you. If you came here, you probably know who Professor Xavier is. I think maybe you should meet with him and maybe he can help you decide if we can or can't help you."

"Uh, no. No that's okay." I pick up my backpack. "I made kind of a mistake coming here, and I don't really want to bother the professor or anything." I kind of fidget with my backpack a minute but that sandwich hurt my stomach. I feel sick like I did after my parents were gone, like this grief I didn't know what to do with. "Thanks."

He doesn’t follow me as I walk me back to the door so I head back on my own, feeling so stupid. I pull my hood down as low as I can so I could pretty much only see the floor in front of me and my dirty sneakers, but I don't want to take a chance of seeing anyone seeing me, I’m already so damn embarrassed. I can hear Hank following me after all but he doesn't stop me or hurry his pace to catch up.

In front of my dirty, too big shoes, I suddenly see these nice, comfortable-looking brown shoes on a wheelchair footrest. I hold very still, only thing I can feel in any way is my heart suddenly pounding in my chest. I really slowly look up and I see the professor for the first time, kind of ducking down to see if he can see my face, a concerned but kind of amused look on his face.

"Hello there," he says with quiet amusement.

I try to say hi but only my mouth moves, not enough sound, but I smile and drop my gaze.

I don't know exactly why, but the sight of him, his piercing blue eyes, and bald head, and kind and laughing face, it makes me so sad I think, _I won’t survive this._ I think if my own parents don't want me, and I can't belong to a place like this, I’d be better off dead. I’m used to these kinds of thoughts cropping up more and more in the past six months, life’s been hard, and I dismiss it but just before I turned away from him to walk around him, I saw his eyes fill with a sad emotion and I wondered if he was using his telepathy and had heard the untoward thought. It only adds to my embarrassment and I cough, shifting my weight and I try to ease my way around him to keep heading toward the door.

I, of all people, knew that mutants were at times dangerous. Some have powers to hurt or even kill people. But I'm not really afraid of mutants, I grew up with them. Yet I felt more of a threat somehow from this kind soul than all the human-haters I'd grown up among. When I walk passed him, I’m aware or imagine I’m aware of and can feel his power, and the power he holds over me. Not just as a mutant with abilities, but as someone I have sought out to trust to help me. I’m regretting that now. In short, I’m afraid.

"Wait," he says softly. I do, but I can’t bring myself to face him again. I think he mistakes it for an indication I don’t plan on staying because he says, "Please," but I can’t have moved another step.

I hear him shift in his wheelchair and turn it to face me, and I hear him take a breath in and let it out. "My name is Professor Xavier. Might I have your name?"

"Star," I whisper. My real name, I had already decided it would be one of my truths. Two truths and a lie, that was a thing, wasn't it? Wasn’t it supposed to make people believes your lies better? "Please let me go, Professor." I glance at him and saw him kind of furrow his brow and blink with surprised and concern. I’m further embarrassed I’d said that; he obviously isn’t't trying to keep me there, he isn’t even in my path.

"Star I won't keep you here, I won't make you stay. But please won't you talk to me a few minutes before you go?" He says soothingly like I’m a wild animal and he probably thinks I’m a mutant and dangerous and that's what I’m here for, I’m already fooling him and all he’s been in kind.

I know I should just go and that’s the plan. But I end up nodding a little and I know why I betrayed myself like that; they are really being so nice to me and it’s just really pleasant and painful and I know it won't last so why not a few more minutes? And Charles Xavier is my hero. He kept his life really private for, like, safety reasons, but if you're determined and have a lot of time alone to do whatever, you can find stuff. I pray he won't read my mind and find out how much I know about it, it would be so embarrassing I probably would die of it. He's just one of like probably ten declared mutants who could possibly care about humans. I had come all this way and I just wanted to talk to him a minute.

I stop mid-turn. "Are you going to read my mind?" I peek out at him. I see his really concerned look relax into this kind of softened, gentle one.

"No, I won't do that. But not much I can do about feeling your emotions I'm afraid." He has a nice British accent that sounded the way soap smells.

"What do you mean?" I don’t quire manage to keep the edge of anxiety out of my voice.

"Part of my gift is that I can, under some circumstances, read minds. As a part of that, I can also feel what someone else is feeling, even if I'm not reading their mind. Particularly when someone is having very strong or uncontrolled emotions, I pick them up," he says as he watches me carefully.

"Just the emotions? You can't like, I don't know, you won't know what I'm thinking?"

"That's correct, I won't know what you're thinking, any better than anyone else would." I watch him a moment, trying to read his face, if he might lie about it, but his face is open and honest. I look at the ground and nodded again, feeling as dumb as ever. I can hear Hank approach and I look up at him and he seems pretty serious and kind of gestured the way near the entrance but to one side this giant pair of double doors that is where the Professor's office was. I shuffle my feet but follow him and the Professor came in behind me. I sit down on a surprisingly comfortable chair with brown fabric while he went behind his desk.

The professor is watching me, his brow furrowed, and he looks so much like the pictures I'd seen of him I almost started laughing. I’m verging on hysterical. I push it down.

"Perhaps you could just tell me why you came here, Star."

"Curious, I guess? I've heard of this place and I just wanted to see what it's like."

“How did you get here? Your parents?” I decline to answer this; I’m certain he already knows I came here alone on my own.

"Do you have someone taking care of you?" Hank tries.

“I’m a little old to need someone to take care of me,” I reply. “I’ve taken care of myself long enough.”

"Just how old are you?"

"Seventeen."

"Are you?"

"Fifteen," I relent, "but I've been on my own a while and I'm doing all right. I just was bored, I wanted to see the school, and I did. But I should be on my way. Before it starts to get dark or something." At least, I would be fifteen soon enough. I just turned fourteen so really, it was hardly a lie.

"You said you were in some kind of trouble," Hank says quietly and I shoot him a glance to tell him I’m not happy he used my moment of honesty against me. I looked at my shoes, feeling like this was all their fault, like they summarized all my failures. I scratched my lip with my thumb.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” I say finally when the silence stretches.

"Being a teenager on your own can be difficult," Xavier says. He’s choosing his words carefully. "Any teenager, but particularly a mutant, may encounter any number of dangers." I feel a swell of resentment at his words, although I'd been counting on his assumption that I’m a mutant and for freak's sake, that's what this place was created for. I came here to get help pretending to be a mutant, but I still can't stop feeling angry that it was like, only mutants are entitled to love or help, the people here are no better than my parents. I push the feeling away. I understand I’m invading a space that I have no right to, and that mutant kids needed this place. It wasn't anyone's fault that I am what I am and that I don’t have a place of my own. Xavier tilts his head and leans against his hand, watching me intently, no doubt sensing my disturbed emotions. He knows he had made a misstep but did not understand what it was. "Star, where _are_ your parents?

"I don't know. Prison, I guess." He sits up again and he and Hank glance at each other. "My parents were mutants in the Community, Range and Posy. They were in that incident, that protest or riot or whatever, where those three people died. You know, when ten mutants were arrested, four dead, a bunch of buildings destroyed?" Xavier nodded slowly. "Yeah. Well, they took him and my mom away, I don't even know where. Honestly, they might as well be dead for all they care about me." I try to gauge his reaction to this pronouncement but I can’t read his expression.

I hate talking about my parents. I’ve tried for so long to convince myself I didn't care about them or care about them not caring about me, and it’s exhausting. I’d gave up hope that they actually care about me when all my letters came back unopened. I figure they had seen their chance to cut ties with me and took it. We're not in any circle together; I can't affect them, they can't affect me yet it seemed like all they did was affect me.

The thing is, Range and Posy, the names they had chosen for themselves when they discarded the human names that they never even shared with me, they're like, strangely endearing. They could be very sweet, even to me once upon a time. Like, they changed their names, but not to anything threatening, but Range and Posy. They had every right to be hateful, maybe, with all the prejudice they experienced, but they never wanted to hurt anyone, that I know of. Their love and acceptance didn't extend to me, but that was a fault in me not them, mostly. Always when I thought of them, it was my heart and soul being ripped in two. I hated them, but I couldn't. I loved them, but it had nowhere to go, no heart to receive it, nothing to fall into and grow. 

I lean forward, rocking my body to the pain, trying to dislodge it. I shove it down. The Professor is still watching me; I can sense the sadness he feels for me.

"The news didn't mention the names of the mutants involved." I nod; the incident was barely in the news. I don't know if it's because the government doesn't like advertising when there's difficulty with mutants or it's just really not newsworthy anymore. "But Range sounds familiar. Yes, I recall hearing about him. He could run far distances, couldn't he?"

"Uh, yeah. Dr. Minde said he doesn't get muscle fatigue. So. He can lift a lot, too, so he’s really strong." I resent the difficulty I have talking about them. I shouldn't care about people who didn't care about me, but I do. Another reason I’m a cosmic joke. "But he really likes running. He could run 200 miles, just stopping to eat and go to the bathroom. He'd sleep after though."

"Dr. Minde?"

"Yeah. The doctor at Community. Some sort of geneticist genius and medical doctor, he took care of all the mutants at Community kind of like you guys do here, helping kids learn their powers and treating any illness or injury that happened."

"I see. What about your mom?"

I swallow, shaking my head a little. "Yeah. Posy. She has this green thumb. I mean, she can grow anything, but she’s especially good about flowers especially, and trees." Like, how Mannik thought that a woman who grew _flowers_ would be any use in his advancement schemes is beyond me. But no one forced her to be there, either. "But it was like, really innocent, you know. Like, not like some sort of Poison Ivy or something she couldn't control plants she just helped them grow."

"I wouldn't think so, no," Professor says, a question behind his tone.

"Just something someone said to me once," I mutter. Some kid in one of the foster homes had made fun of my mom once and I guess it stuck with me more than I realized. I rub my face in an attempt to wipe any betraying expression. I hate that all the emotions that I've managed to tame over the past several months were bubbling so quickly to the surface just by talking about things, but I suppose it _is_ the first time I’ve spoken about them to anyone not interrogating me for an investigation. Still, I’m rocked by a wave of self-recrimination.

"What about you, Star? What did you receive from your parents?"

I shift in the comfy chair. "Are you talking bout philosophically or physically, Professor?"

"As you please."

"I don't think like Mannik if that's what you're asking." I meet his eyes for a moment on that one. I pretty much blame Mannik and mutants like him for what happened. I know they didn't force my parents or anything, but I sometimes think they were just trying to make the world better and wasn't trying for any of the BS drama. "I think mutants deserve some rights, some protection from discrimination. But I'm not big into the supremacy thing."

"I see. Anything else?"

I suck in my breath. Up 'till now, it’s all been hypothetical, but now I have to choose. It’s my whole life hinging on one choice like some stupid movie, one you watch and the hero always makes a terrible decision. I can see two paths before me. One, I am myself. No lying or deceiving or hiding things or half-truths or whatever. I'm wholly me. But I'm alone. I don't have a family, friends, or even necessarily food. I would be in some kind of danger.

The other path, I lie. All the time, every day, and pretend to be what my parents always wanted. I'll have everything I've wanted but know it's not really for me, I’ll always know I'm living a lie. The main drawback to the second path is that it's doomed to inevitable failure. I know it won't last. But for a while, it might be nice. I _could_ just leave too if it's not working out. And I really don't have any other options for getting to school. I hesitate again, but I’ve made it this far.

"Well, Professor, if you're asking about my mutation, I'm afraid my parents and I diverge on that score as well. While I don't think they could harm anyone with their mutation even if they wanted to, mine is a different sort." My heart is pounding painfully; I can’t hide the emotion I’m feeling and I hope they see it as proof of my lie instead of proof that I’m lying.

"Professor, before you offer me a place here, you should know it is within my power to take a life. My powers can kill.” Xavier leans forward, his blue eyes startled and boring into me. It was a calculated risk. He may not accept me into the school around other kids with a declaration like that. But I’m betting he’d be even more reluctant to turn me out on my own after a confession like that. It would also hopefully keep anyone from asking me to demonstrate my powers, so no one would find out I have none.

The moment stretched between us, his gaze more calculating and scrutinizing. As the silence continued I wondered if I had miscalculated after all.


	2. Chapter 2

My back begins to itch with sweat but I don’t interrupt the silence, just letting my pronouncement sit a moment.

"I've never killed anyone," I say finally. "I have complete control over it."

"Explain please."

“It started with the plants when I was like three I guess? I don’t actually remember, it’s just what my mom told me later. She said I was being really fussy when she was trying to work in the garden and I wanted her attention. I was throwing a tantrum and when she just kept ignoring me, there was kind of a weird black flash and boom, the plants just withered away. All the plants she was working with were dead to the root." I actually did resent my mom’s plants sometimes, but I'd never killed so much as a geranium. 

Hank and Professor X are staring at me really intently and I resist the urge to pull my hood down again. An uncomfortable memory bubbles up to the surface from wherever I'd forced it down. The way I was telling the story was an echo of the stories I’d heard from my once classmates in Community. When I was getting older and older and more and more of my friends manifested their abilities if they hadn’t been born manifesting them, I would interrogate each of them to find out what they were doing and how and what they were feeling and why, sure that there was some key I was missing that I could figure out and use to access my own miraculous powers. I had even fooled myself into imagining that if my abilities were taking so long they must be really special, something amazing that would turn everyone’s pity into awe. It never came, of course, and one by one those friends rejected me and abandoned me and left me alone. I can still use what they told me for this, at least. In that way it wasn’t a lie, it was true, it just wasn’t true about me.

A terrible wave of loneliness hits me and my chest squeezes painfully, but I won’t cry.

"Mom said I was pretty scared and so was she, but she didn't quite understand what happened so she wasn't too worried about it. I mean, she and my dad talked about it, but what could they do really?" Just as if the story I told were true, I feel a terrible pain in my chest. The lying. I've never done it before. Is it supposed to hurt?

"It didn’t happen again until all this time later, when I was five there was this really aggressive dog in our neighborhood and it-- it killed my cat. I was upset and crying and the dog turned on me and I do remember being scared and it was getting dark. I was awake but everything went dark it was like the lights went out, but we were outside in the sunlight. Just for a second but when I could see again the dog was dead."

This story is true, at least the fact I watched my kitty get killed, though of course I was too weak and powerless to do anything to stop it or do anything about it so the rest was purely fictional. All I’d really done was scream in terror and grief until someone came out and chased the dog away. It could still count as a truth. The Professor leaned forward, his eyes alight with sympathy and concentration. I let the pain and fear of that day fill my mind for a moment, hoping Xavier wouldn't sense my other emotions of dread and hatred for lying, of using my poor cat to decieve anyone. I feel sick and doubted if I could really go through with all this; but I didn’t stop. But I just keep talking.

"I was pretty scared and so were my parents, they gave me a lot of chocolate to keep me happy." That was also true. My mom loves chocolate and was always sharing it with me. Not as often, after they found out, but she still did. I actually still have one of the chocolate bars she gave me, I've been saving it and now it was past the point it was edible and I still keep it. Like it was some kind of replacement communication for their militant radio silence since they were arrested. I should throw it out. Maybe I will, now that I’m here. "And they took me to see Dr. Minde."

I considered lying about Dr. Minde. There was a small chance that Xavier could want to contact him and he would find out I was making everything up. I’m making a calculated risk, knowing that Dr. Minde was even more reclusive and evasive than Mannik was and there was almost no chance he would talk to anyone outside of Community. Not even and perhaps especially Charles Xavier, who was known to consort with humans and rogue mutants. "Anyway, he helped me find the like, thread that connects to my mutation, and I just know never to pull it. He used goldfish and plants and it really didn't take me long to figure it out. I haven't had any problems since."

Professor Xavier is watching me really closely, looking very serious. "Star answer me as truthfully as you can. Does anyone else know about your mutation, as you call it?"

"I don't think so. Dr. Minde didn't um... he didn't tell Mannik. I think he was afraid of anyone trying to use me for my abilities.” The understanding look on their faces speak volumes; they are more than familiar with how mutants were exploited. Dr. Minde is one of the many people who had distanced themselves from me once it was clear I was an ordinary human, but he was a bit more kind about it, he’d even visited me a few times after he’d discovered what I was. But I know he was uncomfortable consorting with me after he found out I wasn't a mutant; he always looked at me like he felt sorry for me.

"Only my parent knew, and him, that I know of."

"You never told any of your friends in school?" He sounds skeptical.

"I don't have any," I mutter, turning away. There was another truth, one I didn't need to tell him but I couldn't seem to help myself. I thought how, really it’s hard, all of this is hard, and I wish desperately that this is over. It’s utterly humilating.

"Star." He seems to be trying to figure out a way to say something. He shares another look with Hank. "I want to be very honest with you. Secrets can be very dangerous at a school like this. I told you I would not read your mind and I will never do that without your permission, but that means you must tell me what you are thinking. And it's very important that you are honest with me." I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from squirming. "Are you sure you're telling me the truth about your power? Is there any chance, even a very very small one, that you could harm someone?"

"Um, no Professor.” I’m thankful for the caviat he provided at the last moment; at least I could be totally honest in answering _that_ “There's no chance of that, even a very small one," I say in a whisper. My entire chest hurts. _They would hate you if they knew,_ a mean voice in my head says, my inner voice.

I feel the tears I’ve been fighting prickle behind my eyes, I'm sure obvious to him. If he pushes me even a little, I will have to reveal the whole thing. I feel on the edge of a cliff. One look or word from him will push me off. I'll be out of this school, out of luck, out of ideas. A cold shadow crosses my mind that if I don’t escape through this school, I'll be good as dead and if I die no one would even know or care. I shudder.

"Thank you for answering, Star. That's very good. Now... you've been through so very, very much. You've been very brave, and as you say, you've been doing all right on your own. But I wonder if you would not care to stay here, even on a... trial basis." I’m not sure if I appreciate the way he speaks to me as if to a particularly skittish horse; however, I can’t exactly blame him either if even a portion of all I’m feeling is in any way apparent to him.

"I'm not sure if it's a good idea." Part of me feels so horrible that I _want_ him to reject me. I could even blame him.

"And yet you did come here. You sought us out. There must be some part of you that desires a bit of help. We all need a little help, sometimes."

"I don't have any money." I say instead of answering.

"There is assistance for students who need it, Star," Hank speaks up. "But really we should let your foster parents know you're safe, use the money from the state. We have contacts in the—"

"No!" I interrupt emphatically. I raised my voice only slightly, but we've been talking so quietly it was loud in the room. The 'no' hangs there awkwardly a moment. If they call my foster parents it wouldn’t be only a few questions before they discover I’m not a mutant. If they find out I’m not who I say, I would be back to square one. I know my records were sealed without certain approvals due to who my parents were; I didn't think there was any way for him to find out the truth about me if he respected my wishes not to call my foster parents. I didn't even remember their name, in any case.

"No one can find out I'm here,” I say emphatically.

"Star," Professor Xavier says reluctantly. "It's much better to work within the system. I’m sure your foster parents are very worried—"

“I told them I was coming here. They hated having me, they’re glad! They asked me not to contact them,” I say quickly.

“Nevertheless, Star, that’s not how we try to operate—“

"Then I leave. It's settled." If they find out the truth I was as good as gone anyway. "I have my reasons, I assure you, professor." At least I can be convincing on that count.

"Very well, Star, at least for the moment, I will take your word on your foster parents." It’s not the first time, it wouldn't be the last that a young mutant came here with a clouded history and a desire to cut all ties with the past, but I was not pacified; I would have to think of something to tell them when they pressed me again about my foster parents. "Will you agree to stay here for at least a little while?"

"Okay," I say, shaking inwardly. _Weak,_ my voice says emphatically. _Liar._ I miss something he'd said. "What?”

"Very routine, I assure you." I shrug, agreeing to whatever he'd suggested.

"First. Is there anyone you can think of who might want to harm you?" I frown, surprised at the track his questioning took.

"No. No one cares anything about me." He looks pained at that; his lips tighten. This is also probably nothing new to them. Rejection, they understand. Abandonment is par for the course. I’m relying on it. These men are different; they care. Not about me, though. Some construct, yes, but not really me and there was no blame toward them for that, though I couldn’t help my anger.

"I see. Is there any family or friends that might want to know where you are that I can contact?"

"No."

"Are you sure? If there's—"

"I'm sure." I’m certain the anger I feel is palpable to him. It’s just so humilating. The more I have to admit it, the more I feel like I deserve it, so I wish he would just stop asking. There’s no magical person out there that loves me that I forgot about or something; I think I’d remember.

"All right. Now I must ask for a promise from you instead of an answer my dear. You must promise me to never use your powers under any circumstance until I am there to help you. Will you give me that promise?"

"Professor—" I bit my lip. "I never want to use my power again. Ever. Please don't ask me to. Can I stay even if I don’t want to use my powers?”

"Of course you may stay,” he says, taken aback. “This may be something we discuss later, Star. For now, I'm sure you'd like a chance to clean up and get settled into a room. Would you?"

My face flushes red hot. "I don't have any other clothes besides these. I mean, I used to, but now... I... um, don't."

I see his chest rise and fall in a gentle sigh, and his eyes fill with pity or compassion. "It's quite all right, my dear. We can accommodate you. Hank will see to it. All right?"

"Right." I'm a coward; I am weak. I start to cry.

It's not like I never cry; I cry all the time. Given a month, I've cried probably an average of 68% of the days. I'm close to tears at any given moment when I'm not crying. I feel everything, and I'm a freaking mess. It's not like I hadn't cried in a long time, either, I'd cried earlier that day.

It was just that the tears were an honest and true and vulnerable thing about me and they can’t even understand it right because of my lies. That is the thing that gets me. When they are trying to comfort me, that thing itself injures me. My chest and stomach hurt from it, and I wrap my arm around my middle, just trying to hold myself together. I pull my hood down again, using my sleeve to wipe my face.

"Here my dear." He hands me a handkerchief; a simple kindness, one of many I received from him already that I knew I didn’t deserve. I glance at him, feeling all this grief and desolation and bleakness instead of the satisfaction and relief I thought I'd be feeling at this point. What is it called when something terrible happens, out of your control, that you can't ever, ever fix or make right? Regret. Something like that, painful and hot like shame. I see him wince and I wipe my face, getting myself under control.

"Are you all right, Star?" He gives me a searching look.

"I don't think my parents would like it if they knew I was here,” I say; it’s not exactly a lie, if they cared about me they might care that i was here. “I guess I feel guilty." That, at least, is true.

"I see. You're in a rough spot. But I believe you're in the right place if that makes you feel any better."

"It kind of does. Thanks." I am through crying but still feel a terrible the ache in my chest and it starts to grow even worse. I should have lied and said that was my superpower, crying all the time. Would not have been hard to fake. I could flood the school like Alice in Wonderland.

"I'll look in on you later if it's all right."

"Yeah,” I agree, trying not to let it come out as a question. For all I had counted on their care and concern, it hadn’t particularly occurred to me that I would have their personal attention. I more thought I would see them the way you see a principal, once in a while if you needed help or were in trouble. Otherwise I’d be left to my own divices. 

"Come on Star. I'll show you." Hank grabs my backpack. He looks at Xavier and raises his eyebrow, but Xavier just shakes his head a little. I’m curious and a bit anxious wondering what they weren’t willing to say about me out loud but probably it was something you have to get used to, like someone speaking a foreign language around you. Hank smiles down at me, a good six or seven inches taller than me.

"Just wondering his opinion on where to put you, Star, no worries. We are used to communicating telepathically and sometimes forget it’s not great manners in front of new students. I was thinking about putting you in the dorm so you could meet some people before class, but now we're thinking it'd be better to put you in a guest room for now. Just for a while. Okay?"

I feel sure that wasn't all they'd communicated, or they would have just said it out loud, but I only nod in agreement. They could put me in a freaking closet and it would be better than what I usually had. I grab my dirty backpack out of his hand and with a tentative smile wave at Professor X and turn back to Hank.

I follow him back out into the entrance area of this giant mansion. We actually go up the grand staircase by the glass window that was so pretty and it was this moment where maybe I do feel a little bit happy and hopeful because I'd spent months looking at the window in pictures and now I was actually here and seeing it, which is kind of awesome even when you're heartbroken. Hank takes me to down a hallway with four or five doors; all the spare rooms for “guests,” I supposed. There were multiple doors down the hallway, but it felt like it wasn't really in use. The doors are all cracked open; I have a distinct impression I’m the only guest at the moment.

Hank gestures that I can put my things down. The room is pleasant with a large window looking out at the grounds. There is a small bathroom with a shower, all my own. A twin sized bed, small dresser and closet, and a little desk. It’s unspeakably luxurious and comfortable, not to mention clean, compared to what I’m used to.

Hank is watching for my reaction and I give him a thankful smile to let him know the room is more than all right. “This is... this is incredible. Thank you. It’s a bit much, to be honest.”

He gives a brief sad smile at that. "Well. I'll let you settle in. Listen, if you want to go look around the grounds later or whatever that's fine, but let me know. I can get someone to show you around. There are a few places off limits to students and visitors, okay? Not safe." I nod that I understand, but I wasn't planning on going anywhere. "Okay, good. Probably tomorrow we'll set you up for classes to see how you like them and what you need and stuff. What—what classes were you taking in your last school?" 

I catch the inflection change in his voice mid-sentence like he changed his wording or what he was going to ask. I hate feeling like I’m being tip-toed around but I was the one bawling my eyes out two minutes ago, so.

"I don’t—I can't remember. It's... I haven't been to school in a while. My foster parents home schooled me." In all my eagerness to get back to school, I guess I hadn't really considered how far behind I must have fallen.

"Okay, no problem. I can probably make a records request. What was the name of your school at least?"

"I'm not sure." A sick feeling clenches in my stomach again, anxiety.

"Were you mainstream?" Most mutants were—albeit usually in secret.

"Most of the time in Community, I went to a private mutant school. After my parents were taken away, I went to a bunch of different schools, all mainstream but disclosure laws...” Hank nods in understanding; there’s laws that administration and teachers must be made aware of mutant children, supposedly for the class’ safety. I fell into this catagory with two mutant parents, even without manifesting any abilities myself, but I still caught the looks of fear and anger from my supposed educators. “The last school I went to there were some parent complaints so I was supposed to homeschool but I hadn’t got it set up before I um...”

“Ran away?” he finished gently.

“Yeah.”

"How long have you been living on the streets, Star?” he asks with a kind of grim look on his face.

“About six months,” I admit, not meeting his eye, wondering how big a problem this would be.

“We won't worry about your school records for now, then.” I relax marginally. Hopefully this would be even more discouragement for them to contact my foster people. “Maybe later I can dig around, I won't have to contact anyone; I'm pretty good with a computer. In the meantime, I'll come up with a schedule. You'll love it, it will be so fun to get back to school, okay?"

"Thanks." I swallow, fear pressing against my throat. "Please, Hank, I don't want anyone to know I'm here." Going back to foster families or back on the street just couldn't be an option and I had a feeling that once they knew the truth about me Hank and the professor wouldn't be so inclined to protect me and keep me here.

"Easy, Star," he says taking in the intensity of my anxiety. "You're safe here with us, I promise. I'm going to go get you some clothes so you can freshen up if you want.

"What like you have some laying around?" I laugh a little and it makes him smile slightly. There’s more to the school than what was in my notebook, I realize. It was cool of them to have clothes for kids and whatnot. "So what, you guys are boy scouts or something?"

"Or something. Sorry, I'm great with computers but horrible with guessing games. What size are you?"

I tell him what size I think I am and immediately feel my face flush hot with embarrassment again. I’ve lost a lot of weight while I was homeless and not able to always have a meal, and I can imagine how he must pity me and he probably realizes things I had to do to get food and it’s all just so damn embarrassing I’m suddenly close to crying again.

Hank tells me he'll be right back and I pick up my backpack from this chair I’d set it on and make sure it hadn't left any dirt marks. I set it on the bed and when I unzip it there's the smell of everything, this faint whiff of home like chocolate and laundry detergent and my family and dirt (because of the plants). And the smell from the street like all this nasty cooked food and bathrooms and grime and it smells hard and scary.

I pull out my jacket, in reasonable condition. The chocolate bar, I can smell it through its wrapper. I breathe it in a moment, allowing for the indulgence of wondering where my parents were and what they were doing at that moment. If they ever wondered the same thing about me, where I was and what I was doing. I allow myself the idle thought that maybe when I was on the streets they had heard I was missing, were desperately trying to find me, contact me, even from prison or wherever they were they were telling their lawyer to find me no matter what. I immediately feel stupid for even thinking it as I’m slammed with an ache of a broken heart as I remind myself I know very well they aren’t looking for me or trying to contact me.

There's my notebook with all my notes and research on Charles Xavier and the school, thick with articles I taped in it, stuff I drew. Notes on mutants that are known to come and go here, a few more famous students, that kind of thing. I'd started making it after I had the idea to try and live here, mostly from resources at the library. I'd spent a lot of my time there, where it was at least temperature controlled and they had computers and books, something to do.

I pull out the rest of the contents of my back, picking through to throw away garbage. A dead walkman I hadn't listened to in months with a mixtape someone at my old school made me. Krisma. She had a thing with charm, you know, with getting people to like her and do what she wanted. She was really nice to people, actually. Like probably only half of it was her mutation and the rest was just learning what made it work best was being nice. I think that her mutation just gave her kind of like, permission or something, to be nice and it was just as much the niceness as the power that people responded to. She hadn't tried to contact me after I left, though, or later after the thing with my parents. I liked the music, though.

My dad's watch, way too big for me to actually wear. An old ring of my mom's, not valuable, she said her mom gave it to her for her 16th birthday; I thought it was rose gold, that would have appealed to her and she let me have it when I liked it when I was eight and it only fit my thumb. A stupid stuffed animal I had since I was a baby. A bar of soap, like, $10 in change. A hygiene kit from one of the shelters, a hairbrush and rubber bands, a pretty much empty blue nail polish bottle, a box cutter, a paperback Pride and Prejudice with the cover torn off. One change of clothes. I wish I can tell you about something in there really awesome and valuable, but there's nothing like that. Pitiful. Just staring at all of it, like, so worthless and pointless I could throw it all away and not really be much worse off, made my chest constrict again. I feel sensitive to everything as if my skin has been peeled off, I'm vulnerable and afraid and just so damn sad for some reason, even though I’m safe for now, I know I’m going to have a meal next time I want one. I should be entirely grateful. I don’t even know why I’m struggling. 

I open the closet and hang up my jacket and put everything back in more organized and tossing the trash, but I leave the notebook and paperback on the desk. I curl up in the desk chair facing the big window. I push the hood on my hoodie back, finally, breathing in fresh air. I’m kind of sweaty and wet from crying so hard, my brown hair plastered to my face and neck. I pull my long braid forward so it doesn’t make my back itch and just kind of watch the students on the grounds kicking a soccer ball around, without thinking much of anything.

Hank taps on my door and doesn’t come in until I call to him it’s okay. This will have to be another thing I need to get used to. There’s no such thing as privacy on the streets, and not much in foster care either. He’s carrying a laundry basket with some neatly folded clothes. To my acute embarrassment, even underwear but I wasn't complaining.

"Yeah," Hank says, setting the basket on my bed. "Some of these might not work. You'll just have to try them on."

"Tha—" my thanks choke off in a whisper and I can only shake my head. I don’t start crying again, thank heaven, but I can’t speak, pressing the back of my hand to my nose.

Hank pulls a shirt that had come unfolded off the top of the pile and refolds it without looking at me. "Chin up, Star. It will get better from here. You're safe,” he says softly.

"Yeah." His kindness only makes it worse.

"Yeah." He nods and meets my eyes now, very soft. He looks down at the other items in the basket. "Also, here’s some shampoo and things, toothbrush, tooth paste. There should be towels and whatnot in the bathroom. Dinner's in two hours, downstairs and to the left, just follow the noise. If you need anything, just come downstairs. My office is three doors down from the professor's."

"Okay. Thanks again." He closes the door softly behind him. I leap up and grab the shampoo, conditioner, and soap he'd brought and proceeded directly to the shower; I’ve been waiting for this moment since I realized I’d be allowed to stay.

The hot water running over my body feels so good I’m a little emotional, but that’s hardly surprising since literally even the toilet paper was also making me emotional. I’m a mess. I wash my hair three times, watching the dirty water disappear down the drain, struggle not to hope too hard that my life on the streets is behind me. There are even disposable razors; I shave three times too, leaving knicks all over my legs and even under my arms but I can’t even care. When I am done, the towels are pretty soft and smell clean and putting on clean clothes is maybe the nicest feeling I've had in a hundred years, everything seemed worth it. I’d tell a thousand lies just for this.

I sit at the desk and brush my hair a long time, getting out all the tangles that I usually ignore and tame it into a braid. My hair is kind of stupid; it's not really curly or straight, just these stupid waves that don't behave. It's an indifferent brown color, super long at the moment since I haven't had a haircut in years. I had been growing it out to donate, forever ago, then everything... happened. Now it was down well past my waist.

The sun was getting low and my stomach grumbles but I’m reluctant to leave my warm and safe and clean room—and more than a little anxious to walk into a situation where I know no one. I crawl into the bed. It has been so long since I slept in a bed, and even longer since I slept in _my_ bed, in Community, with the sheets that smell like lavender and the fairy lights above me on the wall and my book shelf. I feel an ache in my stomach, homesickness I thought I was long past.

I've read books where characters couldn't sleep in beds after sleeping on a prison floor too long or something, but I guess I’m not to that point yet because the bed was really comfortable. A tiredness beyond sleepiness pulls at me, a relaxation of all the fear and tension and anxiety I've been holding all day. I was here. Safe.

The grounds are empty now; I can see through my window even at my angle. Students are probably getting dinner. Faintly I can hear people coming and going downstairs, teachers and staff that lived in Staff quarters in the main house, but no one came down the hall where I am and no one came out of the rooms around me that I could hear. It gaves me an eerie, lonely feeling, as if I am a ghost or invisible here. 

The sun sets and it's getting dark before I know it. Living on the street had given me the ability to endure boredom and unending stretches where I didn't talk to anyone or do anything. I have learned to let time pass for its own sake; no other priority or agenda, just let the day be done, then let the night pass. It had put me in my own head a lot, the first appearance of the mean voice that often told me how horrible I am, how horrible life is. The voice comes from a dark place within me, I recognize that. I hug my knees and sit on my bed and watch the darkness fall outside, thinking, _Let it come. I've faced dark things before. I do not fear it._

But you know, I think I did. I did, a bit.

There was a tap on the door, very gentle, and I realize I am sitting in the dark; I haven’t turned on the lamp or ceiling light. I uncurl, my legs half asleep, and find the switch for the desk lamp before limping over to the door.

Professor Xavier is there, a plate of cheese pizza on his lap. "You weren't at dinner. I thought you might be hungry."

I rub my arms, feeling kind of exposed or vulnerable without my hoodie on; it was in a heap with my other clothes in the corner, and my hair was pulled back away from my face. "Thank you," I say quietly. He hands me the plate and I set it on the desk and pushed the door open a bit more. "You can come in. If you want," I offer tentatively, wishing for his company in my loneliness but not wanting him to feel obligated or put him in an awkward situation. This man was incredibly powerful and incredibly famous; he had defeated terrible villains and saved both mankind and mutan kind from threats. I felt sure he had better things to do than hang out with me, a nobody, but he smiles as if he’s glad I asked.

I still worry he’s joinging me to be polite. I feel bad now I didn’t come down for dinner, forcing him to come to me, particularly because my room wasn’t very spacious and it’s difficult for him to manuver in.

"Professor?"

"Hmm?" He’s swinging his wheelchair around to face the room.

"I just wanted to say, um, thank you for letting me stay here. I don't think I told you, earlier. So. Thank you." I resist the urge to pull the rubber band out of my hair so it will fall loose and hide the splotches on my neck.

"You're quite welcome." His eyes are vividly blue even in the dim light, piercing me through. I return his gaze, studying his face, knowing I probably wouldn't have the privilege of seeing him much after tonight. I’m beginning to learn that he always seems to be a bit pensive, his brow in a constant furrow, his eyes thoughtful and serious.

"Star there's a reason why I came to visit you." I tuck my legs under me in the chair and waited, my heart pounding. "I have considered waiting a few days, but... I feel that the information I need from you might be important." I nod but I can feel my heart rate increase as I feel apprehensive.

"You're frightened."

I nod, a little ashamed of my fear after all the kindness he’s shown me.

"Why, precisely?" I draw back. I was expecting him to tell me there was nothing to be afraid of, to continue with his inquiry even in the face of my discomfort.

"I guess lots of reasons, Professor," I say slowly, trying to understand exactly what information he’s trying to get at. I’m afraid because I’m always afraid now, I’m afraid because I’m being questioned and I can’t help but feel like I was going to mess up somehow. “Why do you want to know?”

“I believe that most fear can be alleviated with proper knowledge and experience, and I hope that I may be able to ease your fears if I know what they are. Star, do you know much about the mutant ability of telepathy?” 

"A little? I had a friend... I mean I knew this guy at my other school. He couldn't read minds, like, thoughts. But if someone was thinking toward him? If that makes sense? He could see, kind of images, or memories. He told me about it."

"Yes, that's very good. My powers work a little differently. You asked me earlier if I would read your mind, and I told you I would not. But my ability cannot be shut on or off like a light switch, you see. It’s somewhat like... like _breathing._ Just as we all must breathe and do so without thinking, we have the ability to modify our breathing for our own purposes. Like swimming and we hold our breath, or meditating and we slow it, I can block out other’s thoughts when they or I desire it, though it becomes more difficult the longer I must do that. I’ve had many long years of practice and training and I am able to even pick and choose which minds not to ‘hear.’”

I nod in understanding but I’m anxious, wondering why he’s telling me all this.

“But I don't always need to read someone's mind to know what they are thinking,” he continues. “As I told you, with your emotions in such... turmoil when you came here, it was not difficult, in fact impossible for me to not know what you were feeling." He is watching me, gauging my reaction. I swallow but say nothing. "One thing I learned from the way you were feeling, Star, is that you were keeping something from me."

I slowly sit up straighter and he holds up a calming hand. "Star, everyone keeps information from people they don't know well. It's very normal. Even those I know well are not always entirely honest with me." He looks down, an expression of pain crossing his face briefly. I’m intrigued to learn this about him; for all his mutant abilities, which were significant, he can't always hide his own feelings. "I don't fault you for it, or expect you to tell me anything you don't want to, my dear. I'm not here for that. However, there's another aspect to my gift that I want to tell you about."

I’m trying to pay attention to him while swallowing my fear and panic. To have food and a shower and the idea of classes tomorrow, only to have it all taken away so soon was... upsetting. I feel distraught, but I notice that he called me _my dear,_ a completely unneccesary endearment and kindness. Even though he knows I’m hiding something, he continues to treat me with such compassion; it pains me. I am so close to disclosing everything, but my fear is a vice on my heart and a hand across my mouth. I say nothing but wait for him to continue.

"I'm afraid what I want to tell you is not widely known outside of a limited circle, and I very much debated telling you. But I trust you, Star. I can sense in you a goodness and a kindness that I do not think will fail that trust." Tears suddenly sting at my eyes, but I blink them away. "I have an ability to sense other mutants, Star. It's part of why I built this school; to find mutants and assist them as they needed guidance with their differences."

"You know when someone is a mutant?" I say weakly.

"Under specific circumstances, the answer is yes. I must ask you to keep that information between us, do you understand?" I nod vigorously.

"It's not an easy task, it requires a certain level of concentration. Star, the day your parents were arrested, I was looking for mutants that might need our... assistance when the Mutant Response Task Force was sent in. At times we work with the task force to try and prevent the loss of life we saw that day, for both humans and mutants."

"What do you mean, you work with them?" I demand, standing up quickly. The Mutant Response Task Force had taken my parents and I'd never heard from them again. Although I believed that was mostly my parent’s choice, I did blame the force as well and to find out he was, at least sometimes, in league with them didn’t sit well.

"In an effort to prevent harm to mutants, I have an agreement with some members of the task force that they will allow us to assist in reigning in mutants that pose a threat to life. In this case, they had to act quickly when things escalated and we... that is, my team... weren't there, Star. We weren't with them that day when those people died and your parents were arrested."

"Is that suppose to make me feel better?"

"Yes, I hope it does. I want to be honest with you. We failed you by not anticipating more accurately that Mannik and the others were ready to make good on their threats of violence if confronted. I'm sorry." He’s watching me and he really does seem sorry, and it's not like I can be upset; I wasn't there either, not that I could have done anything. I sit down, wilting.

"I miscalculated. That happens sometimes. I knew little about the mutants there; I still know next to nothing. Since we were not a part of helping to stop it, the Task Force has not been forthcoming about what happened that day. I only know what I've been told." He sighs deeply when I don’t respond, my hope sinking that he would be able to tell me where my parents were. "To be quite honest, I didn't consider them a threat to anyone."

"You were wrong." Mannik was dangerous. People had died.

"Quite. They were more organized than I anticipated, and more willing to put their words into actions. And I've been thinking about that a bit. I believe that something incited them to act that day. Did your parents mention anything to you that might indicate what that was?"

I scoff. "No, they didn't say anything to me."

"Yes, that's been on my mind as well. It made me very thoughtful of why your parents behaved in the manner that they did, leaving you alone. And I very much wonder, Star, why I did not see you when I was looking for mutants that day."

I don’t want to admit I lied to him. "My parents weren't exactly proud of my mutation, Professor. I told you, they weren't as fanatical as Mannik. They wanted to enact political change, not kill people. I don't know why they went along with Mannik, they didn't tell me, maybe they didn't know. Maybe something changed once they got there. Anyway. It's why they left me behind. I don't know why you didn't see me." I mutter this last sentence.

"I think you do."

I position myself so I was hugging my knees and rested my chin on them, desolation stealing over me. I haven’t even lasted a day here. I'm dizzy with disappointment and sadness. "Just say it, Professor, please."

"I'd much rather you tell me."

"All right. I lied about my mutation." He leans forward, tilting his head, but does not answer, just looks kind of intent and sad and firm. The truth comes out of me like a lanced boil, my chest aching as my heart broke. "The truth is, I'm nothing. I have nothing. Dr. Minde told my parents I had certain genetic markers for mutation but that I would never manifest anything. Like two brown eyed people getting a blue-eyed child, he told me. The truth is, I'm no one. I'm not special in any way. I'm garbage that no one wants." This comes out more angrily than I had intended, and he draws back, but he is completely still. "I don't belong with humans, I was raised as a mutant. I don't belong with mutants because I'm a sap." Angry and anxious tears prickle at my eyes again. I am so angry I hadn't even lasted a day. Worthless. Stupid. Inept.

"Sap?" He picks that out of my confession to question, it seemed absurd.

"Like as in homo _sap_ iens, it's what Community calls people without abilities, people like, like _me_. I have no powers, no gifts, nothing. I came here, Professor, just wanting to go to school because the humans won't let me learn in theirs. I came here because I have no home, no family, no future, no hope." I choke on the last word, I can’t find it, cannot finish it, it comes out a soft cry. "I thought it might be different, here."

"My dear," he says so quietly I’m not positive I heard him, and I wipe my eyes as best I can but all I feel is utter devestation. He isn’t crying, but his eyes have the redness, the beginning of it. "Thank you for telling me the truth."

I just start crying, like, actually sobbing, but there is a difference this time. I can’t stop it. It is out of control, all the grief and fear and nerves and excitement and being tired and being scared but relieved, it’s like an emotional tsunami. I’m drowning in my sorrow and ruined hope. It’s overwhelming, as if everything I'd been feeling for months hit me all at once.

"Star, calm your mind," Xavier says in a commanding voice. I feel it then for the first time, his presence in my head, but more like, standing in the doorway, gentle but not intruding, not forceful. He’s radiating feelings of comfort, of peace, of calm, it’s the most bizarre thing that had ever happened to me. Something that usually only happens within you, still within you, but coming from outside you, it’s so strange. My head swims and I almost fall off my chair like an idiot, but he grasps my shoulder and then I’m looking right into his eyes. I’m still crying without the sobbing and he raises his eyebrows, asking me for permission to use his telepathic powers with me.

I draw back away from him, physically, but he holds out a hand to calm me, and his expression tells me I had nothing to fear. I cannot relax my body but nod slightly. It’s pointless at this point to evade him—he already knows what I most feared he would learn. He raises his hand to his head, and still very gently I feel his presence in my mind but more like someone tightening a grasp—it was as if someone reached out and caught a vase falling ten stories toward the concrete. Instead of breaking, shattering, my mind feels steadied. There’s a gentle, firm, kind grip and I then I am in a secure place, a safe place, no harm was meant me, only kindness, only compassion. 

_Calm your mind, Star,_ I hear but did not hear, like remembering it, it sounded in my mind and this time I could; this time the breath that I could not catch I finally caught. Again I breathe, and again, and my tears and storm of emotion calm. I feel him withdraw and again felt a wave of dizziness and his hand to steady me.

"Now." His voice is very quiet. "Are you all right?"

"No." I breathe again. "I don't know. Maybe."

"I told you I wanted to alleviate one of your fears, Star. The fear you have that I would find out your secret and banish you from here. That won't happen. In fact, my dear I can tell you a few compelling reasons why I must ask you to stay even if you change your mind and the school doesn't end up being what you hoped it would be."


	3. Chapter 3

I don't say anything. A part of me feels relieved, but I'm afraid. And despite what he says, I can't quite believe that he would let a human stay in a school for mutants. It's not like I think he's lying about it, I just don't trust it either.

"Star... have you been... in any kind of contact with anyone from your home? With any of those who follow Mannik?"

"No. After Dr. Minde told Mannik I didn't have any powers and never would, Mannik told my parents it would be best if I leave Community entirely, and said I would not be allowed back to the school. Pretty much no one talked to me after that except my parents." 

I'd tried at first, acting like nothing was out of the ordinary. But no one talked to me, and in a tight-knit small town like Community, it was sickening, made my stomach hurt, made me anxious. I started thinking that I deserved their anger and apathy and it was easier to just stay home. Just thinking about it made me squirm; I have very little to recommend me here, I knew that. It could be a repeat of Community. Why would this place accept me when my own friends and neighbors rejected me? There’s no reason to.

"How did your parents respond to that?"

I rub my eyes and I don’t want to answer him. "Professor, does this have anything to do with why you think I should stay here? Because I really hate talking about my parents." I’ve revealed more about myself to him than I’d ever anticipated. I’m tired now and don’t want to talk.

"I am sorry, my dear, but it does have very much to do with that. I would spare you by reading your mind if I thought it best and you permitted me, but I find that communication of information is better than the extraction of it. However, it is not my intent to cause you pain."

"Okay." That little ‘my dear’ endearment of his, although I don’t believe he means it personally towards me, softens my heart. It’s just been a while since anyone acted like they care. I hug my knees, knowing my relationship with my parents wasn't going to work as a big secret. It just adds to the growing list of humiliations I’m enduring, to admit to him that my own parents don’t care about me or love me for who I am.

"Right, well, Dr. Minde suggested I take a break from Community, to give everyone some time to adjust. He said I might be better off with people more like... that didn't have mutation powers. Since I was raised in Community, he thought I should see what the wider world was like and my parents thought it might be a good idea. I went to a private boarding school; I think Dr. Minde paid for it himself."

"What was your experience."

"I was homesick. I wanted to go home. I wanted my parents. I didn't even see them in all those months, only Dr. Minde." I kept my voice low to keep the emotion out of it as best I could.

"They must have been eager to have you home? You went back to Community."

"Yeah. Maybe. It was pretty much like we had become strangers. Things weren't the same." That was certainly true; we were already at two truths. More than two truths; he somehow managed to get past my defenses. It was pathetic, really. How did he manage to draw it out of me that way? "I was a stranger to them. I guess a lot of human parents go through it when they find out their kid's a mutant, yeah? Only for them, it was the reverse. I told them I wanted to stay, though. I thought things would get better. What else could I have said, Professor? I don't even know anyone but mutants. I don't think they had any plan if I said leave, either. But I wanted to stay. I thought they wanted me to stay.

"How did they react? Pretty much I became the pain of their existence. They didn't want me for who I was anymore, yet they cared about me as their child and were willing to disobey Mannik to keep me around. They were stuck with me." I feel myself start to get choked up again, but it’s easier to steady my emotions. Telling him the truth is awful but it’s also a relief. "They looked at humans as dangerous and oppressive. I was the living embodiment of something they hated, or at least resented, but they had loved me before that. Didn't they? Or they only thought they did?"

Xavier processes this a moment as I pull myself together again. I’m not going to be ashamed of crying about them. I told him. I told him I hated it.

"How confident were they that you are not a mutant, Star?"

"Dr. Minde did all kinds of tests on me. He said they were conclusive, and he was highly motivated to find _something,_. But he didn’t." 

"I'm sorry you're going through this. That you went through all of that,” he replies softly.

"It's fine." A lie. It hardly hurts this time.

"Have your parents contacted you?"

"No."

"But you said you moved around a lot. There's a chance they tried and were unsuccessful. Or prevented in some way. Is there not?"

I wipe away a couple of tears, but this is old pain, now, the least of my worries. This was a pain with picked at scabs and an almost comforting familiarity, a sore in your mouth you just kept re-injuring by accidentally biting it. I shrug in answer to his question, not even capable of lowering my defenses enough to hope. I suppose there is a chance, but I doubt it.

"You said you worked with the task force before. Do you know where they keep people? Do you know where my parents are?"

"No, our working relationship doesn't allow me that type of information, Star, I'm sorry. I am trying to find them, however, and promise to tell you if I find anything."

"I thought you had a thing for finding mutants. What, like they can block you?"

"Oh, yes. Particularly at a distance."

"Oh."

"I'm afraid I have a few more questions of a personal nature.” I sigh but nod; I realize that the interrogation couldn’t end until he knew I wasn’t putting anyone in danger by being here. 

“Did you make any friends on the streets, any that might alert others of your coming here?"

"No." Images flash through my mind of the dirty, dark, scary places I'd stayed. The city had a large homeless population, and it was almost its own civilization and culture. I kept to myself; many of the others were dangerous and there was no way to know by looking. Some were regular saps with sap problems (like me, I suppose). There were lots of mutants, those, also like me, who hadn't been able to find a place in the world, rejected, abandoned, exploited or seeking to exploit others themselves. Some may have been harmless but didn't want to be approached, hyperaware that nice people didn’t necessarily remain so and my own friends and parents had wanted nothing to do with me.

Some were criminals, addicts; the violent, the afflicted, the dark souls. I was so afraid of being abused or sold into slavery or killed. I found abandoned buildings and kept to myself, especially at night, and floated between libraries and public parks during the day.

Professor isn’t in my mind, exactly, but he must have a finger to my pulse so to speak because I glance at him and he’s watching me with his strange, intense pity.

"Another reason you should stay here for now. It's entirely unacceptable for you to be alone, unprotected, on the streets."

"I don't see why you should care when no one else does."

"I do care, though."

"You might now, but you won't for long, Professor." I lean my head back against the chair. "I think maybe Dr. Minde was wrong about me."

"Oh? In what way?"

"He was wrong about me not having a manifestation of my mutation. I do. It's a magical ability that makes everyone who cares about me stop caring and leave me eventually. Have you seen that before? The power of repulsion. So far I've got a perfect record."

He frowns and shakes his head. "You're merely a very troubled person, Star, who has been harmed by those who should have protected her."

"Don't... talk about my parents like that." It feels like my chest was squeezed so hard I suddenly can’t breathe. Apparently, I do still care about them, and what others thought about them, not a revelation I’m particularly happy about. Why should I care? Why should I? I don’t want to.

"Not them, Star. I wasn't talking about them," Professor Xavier says quickly, touching my arm, and I feel the band on my chest loosen.

"They weren't perfect and maybe they didn't really love me, but they're the only people who ever tried after knowing the truth," I say. It is, perhaps, a pointless and stupid loyalty. I had often thought, myself, that they should have done more to take care of me after Dr. Minde realized I was powerless. But to hear someone else say it, confirm it, I suddenly realize how much I don’t want that to be true, can’t stand to have someone think of it as true, though I can’t account for the strength of my feelings.

"I know." He looks down and didn't say anything for a while. "And that's another reason to keep you here, Star, to show you there are people you can trust, even mutants."

"I came here to pretend I was a mutant because that's who I grew up with. It's who I am, even if I don't have any special powers or look different. I just want to get an education and move on with my life! But I don't have to trust the other students."

"I agree that you must keep your non-powered state a secret, though for a much different reason than yours. At present, it is to keep you safe from those searching for you until I am sure of their intentions.

I blink, utterly confused. "Wait. What?"

"Star before you came here, I was searching for you."

"You were searching for me? A sap human?" I don’t keep my bafflement out of my voice.

"You see Star I wasn't certain until you told me that you were a human. I thought perhaps part of your mutation made you difficult to detect."

A tremor shocks through me as I realize my mistake, something dark and cold like fear, dread, embarrassment, shame. "Then I should never have told you all that!"

"I think it's safe to say I would have found out relatively soon anyway, Star,” he replies drily. “I am, after all, a gifted telepath.”

"I don't understand. I don't understand. Why were you looking for me?"

"I told you of my connections to the task force and their investigations into Community. A young woman, _you_ had slipped through the cracks and both the task force and members of Community were making attempts to locate you and the task force asked for my help. In my attempts to do that, it became clear that the task force and Community weren't the only group trying to find you."

"Yout must be mistaken. I don't know what you mean. I don't know who you are talking about. Community never wanted me; they were happy when I left.”

"Something changed their mind.”

“Who else wants me?” I demand. “I don’t want anyone to know I’m here! You can’t tell them!”

“All right, all right. I won’t have to reveal your location just yet. In answer to your other question, I will attempt to be clear, but I don't have details yet myself. For some reason, a group of mutants called the Caretakers, a group Mannik has antagonized for years, has been trying to find you. Their interest and Community's, are not well understood.” He pauses. “I understand that you went through multiple foster homes."

"Yeah." I flush. "No one wanted me around for long."

"Actually, Star, I believe that had something to do with the Caretaker group. For some reason, they were keeping tabs on your whereabouts, and keeping that information from Community."

"That makes no sense." I feel weird, off balance. 

"You certainly seem to have thrown a wrench in their plans when you ran away, though. Neither group was able to find you, or me, for that matter."

"It's not like I was hiding. I didn't think anyone was looking for me or cared that I was gone.”

"Star I think you are operating under many misapprehensions, and the idea that no one wants you or no one cares for you is one of them."

"No offense, Professor. You're wrong. I've been me a long time. I know how this ends. I know how it starts... like this. In all the schools and homes, and in Community, it started out nice and welcoming. But it always ends with me alone. You'll see."

"That's a belief I intend to vigorously challenge, Star," he answers quietly, his brow furrowed again. "But I must once again ask you to promise me something. You must not leave here, under any circumstances, without discussing it with myself or one of the other teachers I will introduce you to. It is imperative, Star, to your safety and the safety of many others."

"I don't have any intention of leaving, Professor. But... I still don't understand why anyone would be searching for me. I don't know anything. I don't have any mutations. I'm nobody."

"Whatever their reason, I'm sure they find it very compelling. I think it is indeed a very lucky thing that you chose to come here. Perhaps it was fate. I will do all within my power to keep you safe." He moves his chair back. "Now I hope that we can be honest with each other from this point on."

"I'll do my best."

"Thank you. That is all I ask. Will you eat now?" I look at the pizza. My appetite is gone and I feel sick with nerves. It’s frustrating that I finally have access to food and my own anxiety makes it difficult for me to eat.

"I don't think I can."

"You should try."

"I don't want to." I feel pushed far enough already and the nausea I’m feeling doesn’t help. 

"What _do_ you want, Star?"

I hesitate, ready to brush him off. But I did promise to be honest. "I wish I could sleep. Just... a good night's rest. I haven't had one since I started living on the streets, and I just want to sleep, but I can't ever seem to settle my thoughts—"

"If you like I will help you fall asleep and sleep well tonight Star. Will you let me?"

I hesitate again, not sure if the benefit of a good night’s sleep was worth the vulnerability I would feel by allowing him to help me. I do realize though it will be very unlikely that I’m able to sleep without his help. And there’s more.

I want his kindness. It’s been so long since anyone offered me such simple things as room and food, but this care and concern and allowing me to stay, telling me he’d been looking for me. Mistrust and the desire to not seem like a bother war with my aching need to feel that kindness again for a moment before I nod in acceptance of his offer. I climb into bed, my shoulders and neck aching from the tension of the conversation. 

He puts his fingers to his temple again and closed his eyes. "Try to relax, Star," he says quietly. I close my eyes, but my entire body felt like it was pulled tight like a string ready to break. "Calm your mind."

Then I feel him there, very gently, and this time it felt as if I walked into my childhood bedroom, with all the smells and sights and sensations. My father is carrying me, my head on his shoulder, my body completely relaxed to the point I am nearly asleep. _Now little one,_ my father whispers. _Sleep well. Grow big, my small one._ In my memory, I am safe and content and loved and so peaceful and happy. Posey is here, and when Range puts me in bed she smooths the covers and pushes my hair out of my face. I feel... special. Loved. Important. All things I haven’t felt in so long, so long. A part of me feels the pain and sadness at this memory, but muted, dulled and blunted. The other emotions, and the complete relaxation I feel, were much more strong, more powerful, and I feel so peaceful and relaxed that within moments, I sleep tugs me under it’s dark warmth.  
... 

For once, it is a gentle thing that wakes me; not fear or noise or hunger, but just the light coming in the window. I awake thinking about my parents. They are immediately in my mind as if I had dreamed about them but I don’t remember dreaming at all.

I sit up, luxuriating in the warmth and comfort of the bed. It was the best night's sleep I can remember having. It’s no doubt due to the Professor's influence but I think that it was also due in part to the weight of lies being lifted off my shoulders. Charles Xavier knows what I amand he’s okay with me staying here. Sure it’s partially because of some randos looking for me, but I will take it.

It's weird, what he told me about the Caretakers and Community looking for me. I know it has to be Dr. Minde. No one else there would have any interest in me whatsoever. He shouldn’t have any either, but he’s the only one that’s had any kind of contact with me besides my parents, and I just have a feeling it’s him.

I pull out my notebook and write down “Caretakers” with a question mark. I feel a little shiver of apprehension go down my spine, but at least I’m safe here. Saps and mutants alike know not to mess with the school, a healthy combination of powerful mutants and powerful connections in the government made it an unwise target. 

It occurs to me as extremely unlikely that these Caretaker people were looking for me for a benevolent reason, whatever it is. Maybe if they’re antagonistic toward Community, they think I know something about them. They’ll be sorely dissapointed if that’s what they think. Even before I was outted as undesirable, no one told me anything important.

It’s close to eight in the morning on a Saturday. I take another shower just to smell the clean smell of shampoo and soap and got dressed. I put my hair in its braid and somehow the act grounds me. I'm still me. My hair is still stupid, I'm still a wreck that will probably alienate anyone that I will ever meet. My life is definitely still in shambles and my prospects are limited, it's true. But those prospects do include breakfast and I'm clean and wearing clothes that don't smell like a hotdog stand and that’s something. It’s a start.

There are a few students coming and going, but none of them pay me any mind, barely bothering to look at me. I'm 42% ready to go back up to bed, not sure if I'm really willing to face other students just yet, but I am hungry and it's not something I can just put off anyway. I feel self-conscious now in the clothes they gave me. Would the other students recognize them for what they were? They were fairly generic, could have come from the local Walmart or second-hand store. I feel my anxiety edging upward. I wiggle my toes, reminding myself that I'm wearing clean socks; that's certainly better than living in an abandoned and condemned condo building, even if I didn't have to talk to anyone.

 _Quit being such a loser,_ I told myself acidicly. Pathetic. 

I make my way to the kitchen and looked around and there’s a tall woman, probably close to 6 feet tall, with a white apron on banging some pots and pans around and stirring some scrambled eggs. My stomach growls. There are three other students there, already eating, two of them chatting with each other. None of them make eye contact with me.

"Star." The tall woman was looking right at me. Startled, I just nod. "Sit yourself down."

So I do.

"Eggs? Bacon? Orange juice, toast?" She lists off.

"I um, don't prefer to eat meat ma'am," I say, tucking my hair behind my ear. I had to eat meat when I was digging for food in garbages and my aversion to the texture and flavor of meat had suffered greatly as a result. 

"That's just fine. You need some meat on your bones, though, let me add a little cheddar to your eggs, it will taste really yummy,” she assures me with gentle confidence.

"That would be amazing, thank you." I tuck my arms around me and watch this lovely giant (to me, anyway, I'm only 5′5″) cook breakfast. As she did, like three people come in, get a plate, and left, taking the food with them. Two look at me and were friendly-ish, the other didn't even glance over at me. It seems like most people  
here kept to themselves.

She sets the food in front of me, turns the heat on the pan down really low, and pulls out a stool on the side of the table closest to me, not across from me.

"Bet," she says. "On account of me having a lucky streak." She has pale blond hair the color of straw and cornflower blue eyes, a pretty face, a smattering of freckles. She looks to be kind of old like Hank, in her thirties, but pretty. Her body is full and strong in a way mine would never be.

"Lucky?" I start shoveling the eggs in my mouth, cooked perfectly, not dry or greasy.

"Yep, that's right. You stay by me and things will go your way."

I chuckle. "They already are Bet. This is yummy, thank you." I feel something warm and gentle in my chest; gratitude. A simple act, being fed, but.

"Well, imagine a street kid having manners and all. Maybe it's my lucky day for once."

"Are you really? Lucky I mean?"

"Hank and the doc say I have a 'cognitive predisposition to an inference of seemingly arbitrary events.'"

"Oh! What's that mean?"

"Means I'm lucky, kid," She flashes me a grin I couldn't help but return. She sips on a cup of hot chocolate and didn't seem too fussed that I don’t tell her what my powers were. "You're new."

"Do you ever ask questions?" I laugh. I’ve never met anyone like her; she just speaks her mind. Most people politely ask questions to get to know each other, she just… says what she observes. I like her.

"Not regularly, kid. I like to contemplate and figure things out for myself. Don't like asking people to do what I know they need to do either, just my way. You can imagine yourself up any kind of please and thanks that will get it done if it helps you."

"I'm fine," I say, flashing her a grin of my own. I liked this brash, confident, kind woman. She gives me a smile then gets up to cook more food as a steady stream of students start to come by, but she smiles over at me.

"Then I imagine we'll get along just fine, Ms. Star." Even though she’s busy, she keeps chatting with me while I eat my breakfast; she just keeps me company. When I’m finished, she reaches for my plate, but I pull it toward me.

"There's not much I can do around here, but I can probably clean up after myself," I say, looking at her half apologetic and joking and half kind of pleading because I don't want to hurt her feelings but I really don't want her cleaning up after me either. It’s hard enough letting her cook for me; I don’t want people doing things for me I could do myself, if I can help it. I don’t want to be a burden and I don’t want to lose my independence, so hard won.

"That's just fine, child," she replies, watching me. "You can just put your plate in that washer." I put my plate and cup away. "Louise!!" She suddenly calls and I drop the saucer, shattering it. I immediately flush with embarrassment, I can feel my neck and cheeks get really red and I bend down to clean it up. Bet looks down at me, surprised. "Sorry about that."

"What? Geeze, scare her half to death." A warm, rough voice speaks over my shoulder and I look up. There's this really, like, kind of ridiculously pretty girl close to my age I'd guess. She's a lot taller than me, lanky, drawn out like a cat, with flawless dark brown skin and wild, curling, amazing greenish-blue hair. Her eyes are the same startling color as her hair, and the effect of her physical presence and beauty leave me temporarily but utterly mute. She's just wearing a black t-shirt and jeans, but she's so lovely I instantly realize this girl is more beautiful than I could aspire to be in a thousand lifetimes. I reach for the shattered plate again.

“So sorry!”

"Now, don't, Star, don't I say!” Bet shoos at me fretfully. “You're not wearing any shoes, you foolish girl, don't cut yourself." Louise reaches out a hand and I grasp it and she hoists me to my feet and I feel in her grip and power and strength I've only experienced with my dad. 

"Wow, you're strong," I say stupidly.

She laughs a sweet, golden laugh like honey or caramel. "That's right. Star, is it?" I nod. "Louise."

"Nice to meet you, Louise.”

"Don't call me Lou,” she says preemptively but with a big grin.

I wouldn’t have. Lousie suited her, somehow. Different. Warm. I drop my eyes and looked down at Bet cleaning up the plate.

"I'm sorry, Bet—" I start to apologize again, even more flustered as I suddenly realize this will probably be their first impression of me.

"Ha! I've broken more plates than you've looked at your whole life," Louise interrupts; I think she senses how embarrassed I feel with everyone in the vicinity staring at me, not to mention their attention.

"It's okay, Star girl, you just scoot. I'll have you some lunch later, though, you hear? You need meat on your bones." She stands up, towering over me, but she smiles at me, kind and gentle. "You go with Louise, now."

"Come on 'Star-girl,'" Louise says with a laugh; she spends laughs like pennies. I can tell by the little crows feet around her eyes that she spends a lot of time laughing and smiling and she wasn't like anyone I'd ever met before. "I'm supposed to take you to see Professor Xavier after you had breakfast."

"The Professor wants to see me?" I say with a small squeak in my voice, a tickle of anxiety squirming across my ribs.

"It's okay, you're not in trouble or anything," Louise says, laughing at me again. "They don't kick you out on your first day for breaking a plate, you have to have been going here like a week." I smile weakly. "He meets with all the new students, it's okay. Besides, it's just a pit stop; after that I'm supposed to show you around."

"Thanks. Thanks for doing that." I’m a little crestfallen that she was assigned to be my friend, but it’s really expecting too much that someone like her would ever be friends with someone as drab and useless as someone like me.

"Yeah, sure! Come on."

Despite what she said, and despite the kindness he showed me last night, I am nervous to see the professor. I couldn’t help but think he’d changed his mind, despite evidence to the contrary.  
Louise plops down in a chair outside the office and waves me in with a grin. I wonder if I'd ever be just as casually happy and carefree in my life. I knock and go in when I hear him call to come in.

"Hello Star," the professor greets me. Hank is here as well and gives me a small smile hello. Seeing their warm and friendly faces relaxed me somewhat. "Have a seat."

"Hi," I said, curling up in the same comfy chair from the day before.

"I asked to see you this morning so I could give you your schedule for school," he begins immediately and Hank reached for one of the papers on the desk and handed it to me. It’s my class schedule, and I notice the professor was one of my teachers.

"And I have a few more clarifying questions for you." I frown at this but nod. I feel like I spilled my entire guts yesterday, what more could he want to know.

"Very good. First. Your classes. The young lady you've just met, Louise, if you are agreeable will show you around campus and where your classes will be. Also, she will be your roommate. Of course, if you are uncomfortable with her we can find other arrangements."

"No, um, she seems nice," I reply, but I feel a stab of misgiving. I’d never had a roommate before, what if I was hard to live with? What if it makes it so she doesn’t like me? No one at my other schools had. What if it’s weird or awkward to have a roommate?

Professor Xavier raised an eyebrow at me, no doubt sensing some of my fear and anxiety. "It will be quite all right, Star,” he says quietly, compelled to try and comfort me when I was being stupid.

"Yes, sir. It's just, my experiences before..." I swallow. He frowns briefly.

"I am aware that you may have experienced some backlash from your fellow students when you're status as a non-mutant was revealed to them." I close my eyes for a moment. "The Community teaches things differently than we do here, Star. I am confident that you will be able to find a place here and make friends. However, I have something to ask you that I'm afraid may fly in the face of that a bit,” he says in his soothing accent.

"Sir?"

"Star... Last night you told me you didn't want the other students to know you are not a mutant. Given the fact that there are some very dangerous and determined mutants looking for you, I've thought that it might be safest for now if we continue the ruse that you are a mutant. I don't want you to think it has anything to do with a prejudice against your non-mutant status," he continues quickly when he sees my face fall. I had an inkling he thought I could not make friends here if it were known I was not a mutant. "But it is very unusual for a non-mutant to come here, and I'm afraid if word spread through the students there was one here, the Caretakers and Community may surmise your identity."

"I... I understand Professor Xavier, but I thought I... wouldn't have to lie." Of course, now I realize this was very stupid of me. What had I thought? I hadn’t thought of it at all.

"I comprehend perfectly your disappointment, my dear. I have tried to think of alternatives, and with help, we may be able to come up with a better solution. I have confidence that this is temporary." 

I nod slowly. It was my idea in the first place, I couldn't be upset about it. He spoke carefully his next words. "I think perhaps, along with that, it may be best if you go by a different name. Star will be known to them."

"Louise already knows my name. And Bet."

"Yes, but it is not uncommon for students to take a new name when they enroll here if they have come from non-mutant households. It serves as a means to connect with their new identity as mutants. They will not wonder if you ask to be called something else."

"But Professor..." I feel a lump begin to swell in my throat, inexplicable. I had not cried for months about my parents, but something about being here made me weak and weepy. I try to speak once, then twice, but it wasn't until the third time that I can get the words out. As much as I resented them, was I really willing to abandon the name they'd given me? "What if... uh, what if they, that is, my parents, are trying to find where I am? You know, like you said. If they've been trying to contact me."

The professor glanced at Hank, who shrugs and shakes his head to indicate he agrees I should change my name. "I'm sorry, my dear. I truly am,” Professor says gently. “As soon as we have discovered more about those who are seeking you and why we will end the charades and you can simply be you. It does pain me a great deal to ask it of you, and I would not if I felt there was a better option."

I can understand why they think it’s best so I agree, but my breakfast sits like a stone in my stomach and I feel a sudden bubble of self-recrimination and dislike. This is what I had wanted, what I planned on, pretending to be a mutant here. There was no reason for me to be upset or resentful. I lift my chin, forcing away my doubts.

Having never in my life considered what I would be called aside from my own given name, I’m not sure now where to even start. I think back on music, on books I’ve read, movies I liked, trying for inspiration. It occurs to me my dad read his own father's western novels— a genre rooted in the past, and far, far out of fashion now. But when I was little, when I was bored, I would read some of them, sometimes.

Aside from the fact that no one else I know reads them and I would be embarrassed if anyone ever found out that I enjoyed them, they were an ideal source of inspiration. The fact that there were these men and women who went into this kind of wilderness and they just carved out a living and a lot of them died and there's no one who knew where they went. Plenty of them probably had friends or family that wondered what happened and they never knew; maybe their horse ran away, or they got sick, or twisted their ankle; any small thing could get you killed. A lot of people went west and they died along the way, alone, or maybe someone gives them a quick burial. But it didn't keep people from going. They were brave. There's something about that I never get sick of reading about, even though it's a bloody and violent history it's also strangely beautiful as well. Westerners often changed their names, too, and moved about with near anonymity. They could change their whole life just by moving towns and saying they wanted to be sheriff or something, even if they’d been a thief before, no one knew.

Mutants are oddly like those westerners. I might not technically be one of them, but it's something I can appreciate about them. They're all a bunch of cowboys, living by a kind of code because the laws in place don't have great application or enforcement. There's always going to be those, like rustlers, that make problems. But there's more, right? That are there to carve a life, at a cost, for themselves and even more for those who come after them. So many of them are moving away from the past they don't want anymore, and toward a brighter future that they have to forge for themselves.

I'm one of the ones that would have died early on my travels, probably of dysentery. When you were a westerner, you had to do things well or die. If you're going to lie, lie well. Shoot—shoot well. Punch cows, track game, hunt, built, all of it; do it well. I'm not on that level for anything. I'm tepid water. I spent my whole life waiting to become something amazing, only to find out I never would. Never even could. Like, all your friends are caterpillars, but you're just a worm or something.

But like those westerners and the mutants, I can pick a name now.

Star, the cosmic joke. I don’t know what else I wam. I look up at the Professor, asking me for a new name, one I didn't even know I wanted or needed.

"Do you know who Calamity Jane is, Professor?" I asked quietly. He tilts his head in invitation to go on. "She was tough and strong, really talented, really smart. But she might have been a liar about some things. I don't know. I don't know. She knew how to take care of herself, and she was often alone, trying to fit into a world she maybe couldn't totally be a part of."

He doesn't answer me at all, just his brow furrowed like always, like I'm a sad puzzle. 

"Okay, yeah. Just call me Calamity then." I lift my chin, decided. I am leaving behind my name. Who I was. What I became next remained to be seen, all I had to start with was a name.

He kind of smiles a sad smile, at least it didn't reach his eyes, but maybe he was thinking about something else. 

"We all want you to be safe and happy, Calamity. I will do whatever is in my power to do. But I might suggest that you take a moment to ponder your future. While it seems uncertain and perilous at the moment, it is yours to grasp and shape in whatever way you see fit."

That does make me feel better. I’m getting the safety I'd hoped for, and now I can just be a teenager in school for a while. I give him a small smile and nod.

"With that in mind, I wonder if we should come up with a different explanation for your powers. It was wise to choose something that could not be readily displayed, but I'm afraid it would attract unwanted attention should it be widely known."

"Like what? I'm not the creative type."

"Emotional manipulation would be difficult to prove or disprove, especially in a novice," Hank put in.

"Fine, I guess." The reminder of my uselessness and need to lie deflated me a bit.

"You have many people here, teachers and fellow students, who will be happy to give you the home and friendship you have been missing. I promise you that." This makes my throat ache again and I just nod again and give him a thankful smile as I turn toward the door. Hank catches up with me as we waved good-bye to the professor. Hank and I stood in the hallway outside the professor's office.

"Calamity," he said with a little smile, trying out my new name. "You'll need to go to the clinic today for a checkup. It's something we do for all new students, to get a medical baseline. Dr. Grey will want to see you this afternoon around three, okay?" I look up at him nervously.

"Actually, um... I'm not fond of doctors; do I have to? I'm fit as a fiddle."

"I wouldn't ask if it weren't important."

"I really don't want to."

Hank sighs and twists his lips, looking complicative. "There's really no way around it, kiddo. We have to make sure you're safe and healthy. I promise you've got the best of the best. Dr. Grey isn't even usually here, you're kind of lucking out."

"Look I'm sure he is. It's not that. I just don't like doctors."

"I wouldn't push you if I didn't feel like I had to, Calamity. Trust me. Trust us. No one here will hurt you. If you are healthy, it won't even take an hour."

"All right," I say reluctantly. "Won't she realize I'm not a mutant?"

"All the teachers will, actually. Dr. Grey is also Professor Grey, and all the teachers will kind of need to be in the loop on you. To keep you safe and all that."

"Right."

"It will work out. In a few days, you'll feel like this place has always been your home. Any questions or anything?" Hank gives me a bright smile of encouragement.

"Are there any students with... with powers like the professor's?"

"Some degree of telepathy is present among a few of the students, but hardly developed to a level you need to be concerned about."

"Is there any students who... you know... don't... like people like me? I mean non-mutants. If it ever comes out, you know, later, and then they think I was lying or something..." I look around surreptitiously, worried that someone might overhear us.

"I don't know that I can speak to that, completely. I want to be honest with you. But I believe we will be able to explain things in a way that no blame will fall on you. I mean... despite your beginnings, none of what is happening now is really your fault, it's the Professor's idea. And... you know that nothing that happened before is your fault, right?"

I can’t respond right away, my throat aching painfully. "Maybe. But others might not see it that way."

"Give us a chance, Calamity," he says calmly. "We may surprise you."

"Or maybe you're the one that will be surprised," I answer, watching his face carefully.

"Unfortunately, there's very little that surprises us anymore," he says, sharing another grin with me, as if we shared an inside joke. He pauses, growing more serious. "Trust us, Calamity." I don’t answer and he turned and I followed him back to where Louise was waiting for me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would appreciate any comments very much!


	4. Chapter 4

Louise takes out her headphones as I walk out of the office and offers me a grin.

"You look like you got a lecture or something," she says observing my flushed appearance.

"Nah, he was pretty nice to me. He said I can go by my preferred name... Calamity."

"Ha!! That's awesome. Calamity, huh?" I smile and shrug. I liked it, when she says it; but it still gives me a feeling of anxiety or foreboding, more than likely just difficulty adjusting to yet another big change. 

"Do you think it's stupid?"

"No! It's great. I've heard stupid names, like Louise, and I didn't let that stop me from using it."

"Louise's not stupid!" I say, aghast. "Nothing about you can be stupid."

"Aww! You're a nice girl, you come stand by me." She says and grabs my arm. I feel like a tiny, ugly insect next to this beautiful giant. Her teal hair flows around her face and down her back, curling and beautiful like a mermaid's, in stark contrast to my ordinary and unattractive brown hair. We cannot be more opposite in appearance or temperament. Louise is beautiful, friendly, cheerful, all things I’m not and don’t ever see how I can be. 

"I guess I will since Professor Xavier said we would be roommates?" I say doubtfully.

"Yeah, I know, cool, right? My last roommate graduated." She gets quiet for a minute, lost in some memory. I watch her face, a tight sharp sensation like longing as she clearly had affection and a deep love for whomever she shared her life with before. I’m jealous, knowing I could never provoke that emotion in anyone, not even my own parents.

"So, yeah, it will be great. We'll have fun. Do you have a lot of stuff to get?" She asks, shaking herself out of the memory with a smile at me.

"No." We walk to the stairs and she runs up them like she's done it a million times. We walk into the guest room I'd slept in and I put my stuff in my backpack, my dirty clothes included, and I get the stuff from the bathroom. Louise looks interested at first but her face gets quiet and closed off as she realizes how little I have and how cruddy it is. My face fires bright red with embarrassment.

"So are you a runaway or something?"

"Um," I hadn't discussed this with the Professor, so I’m not sure what to tell her. Since my identity is supposed to be some kind of secret to keep unwanted parties from being too interested, it seems safest to lie, but I don’t like it. “No I didn’t run away,” I lie. “My parents kicked me out when they realized I was a mutant. My grandparents threatened to cut them off if they didn’t get rid of me. I spent a few weeks on the street and eventually they came to the conclusion sending me here would be a better solution.”

"Wow, that sucks! Sorry."

"Yeah. Well, here is better than with them, I hope, so maybe they did us both a favor." I feel guilty lying about them, a little; I try to remind myself that I don’t owe them anything. 

"For sure! This place is really great. You'll like it." She’s studying me, though, and I find her scrutiny embarrassing. I feel sweat tickling my back. I hate to feel embarrassed.

"How'd you come here?" I ask her.

"I drove,” she quips.

"Ha!"

"Just joking. Yeah, when my parents realized I was a bit of a freak, they researched and thought this was the best school and brought me here four years ago when I was 12. Before that, I went to regular school. I still see them on some weekends and holidays."

"Wow, that's good for you."

"Yeah."

"What do you.. like, do?"

"You already know, Calamity. I'm strong. Freakishly strong, and my hair and eyes look like this."

"You really are strong?"

"Yup. I could lift you over my head with one hand. Professor too. Just about anything."

"Wow, that's awesome, Louise." She shrugs and grins.

"I've definitely heard of worse."

"And your parents were okay with everything?"

"Yeah, they were okay. They tried to dye my hair because elementary school kids don't typically have hair color normally reserved for clowns, but. They'll send me a package this week, and I'll share some of my mom's cookies with you. What about you?"

"I can manipulate emotions." I try out the lie, flushed and anxious that she will ask me to show her. “But I'm not very good at it, and the Professor said not to do it. I've only ever done it and it hurt someone," I ad-libbed, trying to forestall the moment she will ask me for a demonstration.

She looks surprised, but shrugs. "I guess people will leave you alone then."

"Yeah. I guess. I hope so, but I really can't use it, it's pretty weak since I don't even like to practice."

She nods. "That's fair. Come on, put those things on and let's go see our room."

We spend the next few hours before lunch messing around the campus and rearranging our room. She shows me where my classes would be and shows me places students weren't allowed. I try to pay close attention although I feel a growing dread at the doctor’s appointment I have scheduled later and I keep realizing I had distracted myself when she was talking.

"We can get into big trouble even trying to go in there," she’s saying, drawing my attention to her again as she is showing me the stairs to the basement. "But there's tons of security so I doubt most kids could even get very far. Locks and cameras and all that."

Loiuse tells me there were about 75 students at the school. That blows me away since my old school at Community only had probably 20. She introduces me to about a dozen other students. They are all pretty friendly to me, not overly, but nice. Only a few ask what my power is, and six or seven of them show me their powers. It gives me a kind of thrill, and I allow myself to feel a little happy, like I am around these really cool kids with powers I would never have but at least for now they accepted me as one of them and I could pretend we would be friends. 

An ugly voice in my head tells me they wouldn’t like me even if I did have powers and they will certainly find out the truth eventually and then they will hate me. I can’t help but realize the truth in it and I know it makes me shy and awkward. So much for making friends.

Bet makes us lunch in the house again, though Louise had shown me the kitchen in the dorm building. It was fully stocked with giant refrigerators and a huge pantry, and I guess it's where most students ate most of the time. Bet fed the teachers and staff and visitors and helped to run the other kitchen. I am intimidated by the other room, often full of kids visiting and eating and doing homework. Bet sees the daunted look on my face. 

"You come here anytime, though." Bet says quietly to me. I smile at her, grateful for her encouraging words. For all the new people I’ve met and how kind they are, I was anxious and having a hard time finishing the sandwich. "You doing okay, Calamity?" She says, testing out my name.

"She has to go to the doctor," Louise explains. "She doesn't like doctors."

"You're not the only one. Lots of kids come here like that," Bet reminds me soothingly.

When the mutant x-gene was first discovered, the medical community kind of freaked out. There were some people that tried experimenting on carriers of the gene and on mutants, but after a few people died and someone wrote an expose comparing the whole thing to the Nazis, most of it stopped. There're laws against it, also because people don't want experiments making it worse or whatever. But still, some parents were asking for tests and treatments, just hoping for a miracle. Of course, there were weird people who did want their kids to be mutants, don't get me wrong. But most people were afraid of mutations. Afraid of their own kids and the unknown. Afraid for their kids that didn't have a place in culture or society yet.

"Yeah."

"Dr. Grey is nice. Try not to stress too bad," Louise says, watching me and sipping a soda. I just nod, feeling sick now. If I let my anxiety get any worse, I really would need a doctor. "Come one, I'll take you. I'll wait for you, okay? Just scream and I'll use my freakish strength to rescue you, no problamo." That gets me to smile a bit and Bet waved me off of cleaning up. I give her a thankful look; I have delayed just enough I risk being late and that is the last thing I want.

There is one set of stairs that goes to the basement that doesn’t require a bunch of security clearance, and it leads straight to the clinic. It looks really fancy and new, not run down like the health clinic in Community where Dr. Minde was. There is a little waiting room where Louise plops herself down and picks up a magazine, putting her feet on the table while I just move around the clinic waiting room, examining everything waiting for someone to come out as there’s no receptionist or medical assistant to greet us.

"Hello Calamity." A soft voice says from the doorway. We haven’t even been here thirty seconds. I glance at Louise and she grins, winking in encouragement.

"Hi," I venture timidly. 

"I'm Dr. Grey." She is tall, shorter than Louise but taller than me. I recognize her immediately from the news and magazine articles; I hadn’t realized I was meeting _that_ Dr. Grey. Her vibrant red hair flows in soft waves and gentle curls, and her green eyes fix brightly on my dull brown ones. She is beautiful, but I know that her quiet, gentle demeanor belied a terrible power. She is the reason that so many states had anti-mutant legislation on the books; the world was terrified of power like hers, as they well should. 

Imagine thinking you were going in for a simple check-up and meeting one of the most powerful mutants known to exist, that even Charles Xavier has admitted doesn't know how far her powers go. I glance quickly back to Louise, who is watching my reaction, and I cast her a look of surprise and confusion. What on earth was a mutant this powerful doing playing doctor to a bunch of adolescent mutants?

Louise waves a hand at me to get on with it. "Calamity. Oh. You already knew. Um." I look up at her, embarrassed. I am incredibly intimidated. She smiles kindly.

"It's okay, Calamity. I understand how you're feeling right now. Would you like me to calm you?"

"Um, no please.” I hope I’m not insulting her, but I don’t want her or Charles or anyone using their powers on me. I’m utterly helpless against them even if they mean me well and I don’t like the helpless feeling, which makes me a hypocrite. Why I have come here when I’m afraid of mutants’ power when it’s directed at me? I’m some sort of masochist. 

"Very well. Let me know if you change your mind, I can attempt to ease your distress. This way, please." I cast one more glance at Louise, who gives me a casual thumbs up and returns to her magazine but I think her nonchalance is fake because I can see her peeking over the top after me.

I follow Dr. Grey, memories of my past following me. Back at Community, there were some scary people. Angry and powerful, dangerous enough, but they just didn’t care anymore and that put them at their own leve. A part of me had feared these mutants after Dr. Minde told everyone I was a powerless mutant— nothing more than a sap. Now I could be counted among the enemy, among those they despised and fought against. What happened was actually much more incipient and it felt a lot worse. I just became invisible. People were utterly indifferent to me. They didn't start hating me for being a sap. They didn't reject me, exactly. They just stopped caring. Maybe I could have dealt with the anger and the indignation, but that, there was nothing for me to do.

Let me tell you what it's like to be someone who goes from a possibility to an irrelevance: it hurts. And it really, really sucks. It might make you start to doubt whether your existence is truly warranted, especially if your own parents are struggling with a reason to keep caring about you.

But I never felt in danger, per se. After those few anxious moments when it was revealed what my true nature was, there was never a moment where I wondered if I was safe from them. That's what I'm trying to get at. Those guys could not have cared less about me, and if I would have died no one would have shown up to the funeral even if there was food. I was beneath their anger, even their hatred. I wasn't in danger from them.

As for the mutants at Xavier's school, that was maybe a different story. I knew that Jean Grey was a danger to everyone she was around. The only thing that kept Jean from destroying all humanity, all mutant kind, the earth down to the molecule, was Jean herself. No one could stop her.

And then there's this pitiful, useless, pointless human being that Charles Xavier took in like some stray cat and she's supposed to give me some sort of checkup.

All I'm saying is, I know I'm safe, but it's the kind of safety you feel around a powerful force of nature or a domesticated predator. 

Dr. Grey doesn't strike me as predatory, however. Not really animal-like in any way, The force of nature analogy feels more apt; she’s like an approaching storm, one not bent on your destruction and one with its own particular kind of beauty. And one that could still cause destruction. She seems reserved, withdrawn, or restrained. She's not relaxed, though it's not like she's tense. It's like she's constantly aware of herself and her every move. She's really different from Professor Xavier; they're like yin and yang. She's cool, he's warm. He's empathy, she's cerebral. They are like opposites, but still the same. All this goes through my mind, and though I don't think she's reading my mind, I wonder if she's getting a sense of what I'm thinking because she looks into my eyes briefly and I feel like she knows.

"Let's get a height and weight," she says with a little smile. It was something I noticed about her in pictures too; she only smiles a little on one side of her mouth. I've never seen anything where she's fully smiling, even when posing for a camera. There's probably only five or six articles on her total that I could find, way less than Professor X, mostly dealing with her medical opinions on mutant subjects. She wasn't even a declared mutant for a long time until after a thing with Magneto, but no one is really clear on her powers; just that she's telepathic and telekinetic, probably. I had spent a lot of long hours in the library, and eventually, I found some accounts of her, it took a while to sort out, but I know she is powerful. In any case, articles or no, I can tell she's brilliant and not to be trifled with.

She starts asking basic medical questions and I'm flushed and red again, nervous and just about shaking when we walk back to the exam room. I sit on the exam table and draw up my knees, and she watches me a moment.

"Calamity," she says gently. "I can see that you're very nervous. Is it me that's making you feel that way? I can get Hank to do this if I'm making you uncomfortable."

My cheeks get that ugly flaming red that's really not flattering at all and I put my hands on them in a useless attempt to cool them off. "N-not exactly," I say, my voice tremulous. "I mean, I am, a little, of you, but it wouldn't matter if it was you or Hank." 

Now I was anxious I would hurt her feelings by being afraid, so I did my best to get a grip. "It's just another doctor who took care of me when I was a kid, he was nice and everything, but going to the doctor was the beginning of all my troubles,” I confess, relieved to have a reason for my trepidation at the same time I’m embarrassed for revealing something so personal. 

"Hank told me someone named Dr. Minde," she replies softly, keeping a space between us, trying to give me a little room. I appreciate her consideration at the same time I’m humiliated by it. 

"Yeah. He... he was trying to help me figure out how my mutations would manifest? B-but there w-wasn't ever, I mean, he figured out I didn't have any powers or whatever. My m-mutation wouldn't manifest anything. Sorry."

Dr. Grey tapped her finger to her lips, measuring me with her steady gaze. "Calm your mind, Calamity." Apparently a mantra at this school. "I'm not going to do anything to you. I won't touch you or enter your mind without explaining and without your permission."

"Okay."

"I'm going to examine you now, but I will tell you each step what I will be doing." She steps to the bedside and I forget some of my fear with the opportunity to be close to such an infamous mutant. I’m aware I’m experiencing a rare privilege. 

She's really young for a doctor. There are lines around her mouth as if she's experienced pain, but there’s nothing in her face, her eyes, that makes me think she's cruel or willing to inflict pain on others. She leans close to look in my ear. She smells clean without a particular odor, like a deep breath in the morning mountain air.

She listens to my heart and lungs, she feels my pulse at my throat and wrist. She looks in my throat and eyes with a little light, always quietly telling me what she was doing next and giving me instructions.

She sits down on her stool and made some notes on her clipboard. "I will ask you some questions about your family history now, including your parents' health. All right?"

"Yeah, I can tell you what I know. But. I don't know anything about any of my grandparents, even their names." She glances up at me, tossing her red hair from her eyes.

"That's okay. We'll just make a note of what you do know. And I'm going to take some blood."

"Like, with a needle?" I start to sweat.

"That's usually how it's done, but if you allow me I can help so that you don't--"

"N-no, that's all right. I'd rather deal with the needle." Dr. Minde had telepathic powers, but not like Charles. They felt entirely different in my mind, like a blanket compared to a knife. Dr. Minde did a lot of tests on me, took a lot of blood, but it was his pressing presence in my mind that hurt, that was invasive, that made me afraid. When I was little my mom would always be there with me, but when I was older he had her step out. It's not like he really hurt me or anything, physically or otherwise, but I feel a strong fear and aversion to all things medical now. And I don’t want anyone in my mind during it, that would only make it that much worse.

She asks me some questions about my parents and their health and draws some blood at the same time. It doesn’t hurt very much; I was worked up over nothing. There isn’t much to tell her about my parents; I tell her about my dad's physical abilities and my mom's gifts, she asks a lot of detailed questions. I don’t know a lot of the answers. It makes me realize that there are a lot of things about my parents I never thought to find out, and maybe I never will now. My chest is aching. They were healthy. Didn't get sick often, except with little colds. My mom had a healthy pregnancy, except she was really sick the first six months, she told me about that a few times, usually joking around. She used to do that.

"That's all good information, thank you. Now, I want to ask you about some of the tests that Dr. Minde did on you to see if you had any abilities."

"I really don't know much about that. Like the names of them or whatever, what he was looking for."

"I'm sure that it's difficult to recall, especially when you're not familiar with medical terms. Calamity." She sits back, hesitating. "Though you don't understand everything you saw and heard, you probably remember it better than you know; you just don't like to think about it. If you will allow me, I can see in your mind and memories and I will have an understanding of what was done... of what you went through."

"I don't know about that." I grip the edge of the exam table.

"I know the idea of it makes you uncomfortable. My intent is to spare you as much as I can from having to relive those memories. If you allow me to read your memories, I will be able to quickly learn what I need without what I’m sure would seem like an interrogation. I only want to spare you discomfort but the information is important, how would you like to proceed?"

I think about this for a long moment. If it's faster, and I don't have to talk about it, it might be worth it. At this point, I’m just ready to be done. "What do I have to do? Will it hurt?"

"No, it won't hurt at all, although you might feel some of the emotions connected to the memories. I will try to be careful."

I take a deep breath and meet her eye, mentally tabulating the odds she would hurt me on purpose. I trust her. "Okay."

"Thank you,” she says very softly. “Lie back. Close your eyes, that's good. Now, I want you to imagine a pink door, and in a moment, picture it opening. Open the door, Calamity."

Feeling weird and nervous, I picture a pink door in my mind and imagine it opening. 

Just like that, I feel Dr. Grey in my mind. I automatically tense up in my mind, just like I did physically when she was putting the needle in my arm; but it didn't hurt, having her there. She wasn't a blanket or a knife. I could just feel her strength, like when Louise took my hand to help me up. But it wasn't a physical strength. It was the power of her mind. It felt a bit like being in the presence of an active but inert volcano.

 _Thank you Calamity,_ I hear her say gently in my head. _Try and picture the first time you remember being in Dr. Minde's office._

It wasn't a difficult memory to find, honestly. It was an actual pleasant memory of my parents, when I was really little, probably five, because I was getting vaccines for school. My parents were giants, to me, my personal protectors with special powers, and they adored me then. I was their sun and stars. I was on my mom's lap and my dad had his hand on my back, comforting. Dr. Minde was different too, sympathetic, kind, older than my parents so I thought of him like a grandpa because I didn't have any other concept of what one was like. He was leaning over and patting my head, apologizing for the poke and handing me a pink band-aid.

From there it was like watching a movie in fast forward, with huge gaps and skips. My parents shrank as I grew, it seemed, and Dr. Minde went from older to old but something else about his aspect changed too; something I hadn't really thought about until I was seeing it all at once. He was much more careworn, anxious, secretive, and there was a fine line of, not cruelty, but indifference to suffering that he inflicted. Not that he enjoyed it but it didn’t particularly bother him, either.

In my memories, we approached the time when he started doing experiments. Tests, examinations, he told my parents. I notice Dr. Grey standing there in her lab coat with her stethoscope, observing without moving, but taking in everything with an attentive, sharp gaze. 

At first, it was taking blood and tissue samples and some physical exertion. Then we get to this part where he's hypnotizing me, with my parents in the room to observe and support me, because he's trying to make me afraid, angry, sad, all in hopes that I will manifest something. He's inflicting trauma, telling my brain terrible things have happened to induce those emotions, reassuring my parents that it's not real that I won't have any consequences, but it feels real. It all feels real again—

Have you ever been swimming and not paying attention to where you are and unexpectedly hit your head on the wall? That was kind of what the next thing felt like—a sudden, painful _slam_ into my mind, an abrupt halt. A thousand memories flashed before my eyes, too fast to even process, but it hurt, and it was unexpected, and I hear myself scream and I see myself zoom away from my memories and the pink door in my mind slam shut.

I sit up shaking, and Dr. Grey was standing, looking at me with large, surprised eyes. 

"Calamity, are you all right?" She asks quickly, rushing over to me, helping me sit up.

"N-no," I say, holding my head. I have a slamming headache, so bad I couldn't see anything, I can barely think. I don’t think about how powerful she is, I don't think about how rude it is, I could only feel pain and I’m pushing away at her hands, physically trying to stop what I think is the source of the pain.

"Calamity," she calls calmly, but my eyes are jammed shut, my memories flying around my head like a bomb went off, and all of it horribly mixed up with the things Minde had done to me, like a fist in my stomach. There’s a pounding noise, then I think Louise is there, asking what happened, but it’s strangely mixed up too like I can’t figure out if that is happening or something I was remembering. I try to sit up but I’m too dizzy and disoriented, and they try to help me but I can’t stand the touch of their hands, I am afraid, I’m pushing them away—

 _Calamity. Star!_ Dr. Grey speaks in my mind, firmly. _Calm your mind._ Less than gently I feel her presence in my mind again, but it doesn’t hurt. The closest I can come to describing it is she walked into a room where the window was open and the wind like a hurricane was going through a room full of paper and she closed the window, and then I felt her withdraw. The throbbing, terrible pain like an ice pick through my temples, immediately eases, though it doesn’t disappear. 

Shaking, I sit up, holding my head against the still pounding headache. "I'm okay, I'm okay," I say, and Louise puts a hand on my shoulder and I grasp her arm. After a minute I catch my breath, feeling much more calm. I hear Dr. Grey ask Louise to go get me a water bottle from the fridge in the small break area near her office. The room comes back into focus, no longer distorted by the flash of memories and emotions that had so unexpectedly assaulted me. Dr. Grey looks unruffled, watching me carefully.

"That was unexpected. I apologize for the pain you felt, Calamity," she says, her brow furrowed not unlike her mentor.

"What happened?"

"Calamity, do you know of any reason why Dr. Minde would put psychic barriers in your memories?"

"No of course not. Did he?"

"I believe so."

My heart is still pounding and I take a shaking breath now. Dr. Minde was messing with my memories? "Take them off.” It’s like discovering a parasite, I feel contaminated, violated by something in my own mind not there by my consent as far as I knew.

She holds up a hand, meant to calm me, slow my racing thoughts. “I would like to. But I don't know what's behind those barriers or why they are there. They may be for your protection, and I may damage the memories if I attempt it. It may also harm your mind. You reacted pretty strongly when we merely encountered them, I don't even want to try to touch them at this point."

"Oh. I'm sorry, this is all really overwhelming." My embarrassment is growing; I feel like I made a scene. 

Louise came back with water. She looks at me anxiously. "I was totally kidding about screaming for help, Calamity," she says joking, but there is concern in her voice.

"Sorry," I reply, shaking my head.

"Calamity would you like me to finish my exam or return at a different time?"

"How much longer?"

"Just a few minutes. I did get most of the history I wanted, believe it or not. I may be missing a few key points, but I need to discuss that with Hank and Professor Xavier."

"N-no, let's finish." I shiver, feeling suddenly freezing cold, thinking only that I didn’t want to come back My head is still pounding with pain. "Please let's be done." My hands are shaking.

"All right. It's okay," Dr. Grey says soothingly. Louise just plops down in a chair and stayed with me, which I appreciate despite my embarrassment.

"You're underweight for your height," Dr. Grey notes out loud.

"Oh, yeah. Um. It's from when I was on the streets, I... you know. Didn't always have food." I mutter, avoiding Louise’s gaze, embarrassed.

"You'll need to try and eat well, lots of protein and healthy fats. Some french fries wouldn't hurt you either." She smiles. I was beginning to understand her smiles only made a rare appearance so I attempted one back.

"There's also preliminary blood work back." That was fast. The school must have its own lab and technicians. "Some of your stress hormones are quite elevated."

"Yeah, well."

Dr. Grey stares down at my chart a long moment then raise her eyes to mine and I get a feeling she was going to say one thing but changed her mind. "You're very pale, Calamity. What are you feeling?"

"Just tired. Headache. Cold." She reaches out and places a cool hand against my forehead then got a thermometer and took my temperature.

"Let me get you some pain medicine for your headache. Should help with the fever you have as well."

"I do?"

She nods and goes to the cabinet, pulling out a bottle of pills. She tips two into her hand. "Louise, get her to her room and have her lie down 'till dinner, okay? I want you to inform me or the Professor if I'm gone if she starts to feel worse or develops new symptoms."

"No problem Dr. Grey," Louise says, shaking her curly head. "Straight to bed."

I think about making a joke about Louise not being my mom, but honestly, I feel sick and scraped raw and can't even make any kind of joke right now, especially involving a mom. My hands still shake slightly but I steady myself as best I can, thanking Dr. Grey, who took my hand in her small, cool one in a parting handshake. I do not want to be afraid of her, but I can’t help but think that I was afraid something like this would happen. 

Was it really worth giving up the independence and anonimity of the streets, for all the fear and hunger I felt, if I had to put myself in the hands of grown ups? Mutant grown ups? Telepathic mutant grown ups. I thought it was what I wanted but I was not so sure any more.


	5. Chapter 5

I kick off my shoes and curl up in bed. Louise throws a blanket over me. I shiver at the slight caress of air it creates. I teeter between gratitude for her kindness and discomfort at the vulnerability I feel. At the moment, I’m too sick to fight it, so gratitude wins out; I give her a grateful look.

"Are you feeling any better? You look like crap," she says with concern.

"Uh, gee, thanks. I'm okay." Actually, I feel sick and though my headache has furthered dulled after the medication Dr. Grey gave me, it’s still painful. I’m embarrassed to my bones over the entire incident.

"Okay, that's good. Look, I'm going to help you out and wash your stuff."

"You don't—" I sit up, horrified. I can’t have anyone doing things like that for me. My anxiety, which I had thought had calmed, reared up in alarm at the thought of a total stranger touching my clothes, filthy from the streets. “No!”

"Shh. Shhhhhh. Shhhhhhhh." She pushes her lips out in a shushing expression and shakes her head. I can’t help but laugh. Louise is the embodiment of sunshine, utterly adorable when she turns on her charm.

“Listen, Calamity,” she says, suddenly more serious. She looks embarrassed. “I’m not what you call the touchy-feely type. I don’t get how to help people going through all this crap. Right? But I dang well know how to start a washing machine and I know clean clothes are nice, so just… just let me or whatever, won’t you?”

"Thanks Louise." It was harder than I had words to describe to allow her to do that. But I don’t know how to say no or refuse her kindness, though the agony of humiliation burns through me.

"No problemo."

My eyes ache with tiredness and the headache. My eyes close and I hear Louise moving around, getting my stuff, and I try to reassure myself that everything is fine   
now. The niggling pressure of worry over what Dr. Grey had discovered kept ruining my peace of mind, however, and it was inescapable, this fact—Dr. Minde had done something to my head. 

He'd done something, and I didn't even know about it. It’s a horrible, sickening feeling all by itself, like I can’t trust myself. A sick sense of dread simmered in the back of my mind, this idea of an unknown part of myself, memories I couldn’t access or understand. My mind is in turmoil, but my body was sick and tired, and in the end, the exhausted body overcame my worried mind and I fall asleep.

"Cal. Wake up. Hey, Calamity." I wince, the light hurting my eyes and stabbing into my brain. I sit up and squint at Louise who’s looking at me expectantly.

I rub my eyes. “What is it?” 

"Nothing, but it's getting late and I think you better wake up and eat before Bet closes down the kitchen for the night. You barely ate your lunch."

"Oh." I swing my legs over the bed, still groggy. "What time is it?"

"It's almost eight."

"What??" I look around and the alarm clock on my nightstand glared in red letters 07:57. "Wow, I can't believe I slept that long."

"I can. You still look like crap. What did Dr. Grey do to you, anyway?"

"She just read my mind, that's it."

"She's read my mind a bunch of times and that never happened to me," Louise says skeptically. "Apparently it doesn't agree with you.” 

"Yeah, I guess not." I can't exactly tell her about Dr. Minde. Unless I want to make up some story about my imaginary grandma taking me to see him, but with my head still hurting there’s no way I’m up to any kind of task involving creating an elaborate lie.

"These are probably still wet, just go barefoot." She kicks at my worn out but cleaner looking sneakers. I pull the rubber band out of my hair and re-braid it then stand up slowly. I'm feeling better, my headache is almost gone, but I feel like I've been ill for three days; just drained. 

I figure we'd just go to the dorm kitchen, but Louise steers me outside.

"Nah, I've got orders. You need nourished or some crud. Bet means to fatten you up."

Louise chats with me, and starts telling me about classes. We have a bunch of them together, but a few I'll be on my own. She's telling me about the teachers.

"Mr. Summers is a really good teacher, when he’s around. He’s gone like half the time but he's strict so don't forget your homework. You'll have to take a self-defense class from Wolverine at some point, it's required. I get to work with him on combat skills, he's kind of intimidating at first but he's actually really a teddy bear." 

I listen closely, hoping to jot down details in my notebook later. A lot had been written about the school in articles and I’d read the pamphlet. It had been vague on the details of the staff, only mentioning that a core staff of dedicated educators were supported by a rotating faculty with specialized topics. 

"There's Karma, she has a leg missing, I thought I should warn you, but she's a good teacher." Louise continues. 

She keeps up the conversation for us until we got to the kitchen, chattering on without pausing for my response. I’m fine with that, feeling as tired and still half disturbed as I was. The house is quiet, most of the residents in their rooms by that time, except a few quiet pockets of students and faculty in the common rooms. Bet has the kitchen cleaned up but a big bowl of soup and bread and butter and a big glass of milk were waiting for me.

"No meat," she greets me.

"Thank you," I glance up at my tall personal chef, trying to tell her without words that it meant a lot to me. "Thanks, Bet, this looks amazing."

"Eat it up for me," she says turning away. Louise continues her inane chatter about students and teachers and I respond minimally. I know I’m making it awkward but her continued kindness and friendliness makes me _feel_ awkward. I can't even express to her how thankful I am just for her being around, and treating me like a friend, not being put off by my history and my general lack of personality. Part of it is probably pity, but I’m not about to look any gift horses in the mouth.

I eat as much as I can, until I’m uncomfortably full, just to try and please Bet. She comes and sits down after she is finished cleaning up the rest of the kitchen and doesn’t seem to be paying any attention to either of us, just reading a book. But I see her kind of keeping an eye on me and it makes me wonder what Dr. Grey had told Professor Xavier and if he’d said something to Bet. All the special attention made more sense in that light. 

I insist on cleaning up my own dishes. Bet, towering over me, briefly puts her arm  
around my shoulders as I set my clean cup on a towel to dry. I look up at her, surprised but pleased at the casual contact; it feels so nice. "You just be careful, Calamity," she says softly and I smile at her quizzically. I feel safer than I have been in a long time; there’s nothing here that can harm me. I smile at her reassuringly.

"Let me show you the pool," Louise is saying, already walking away. I jog to catch up with her longer stride.

"I don't feel like swimming,” I say doubtfully.

"Yeah, no kidding, you look like a vampire still. Just to dip your toes in." I acquiesce to this and we walk to the pool; it had to be at least Olympic sized and I wonder not for the last time about how lavish the school is and where it gets its money. Louise is quiet now, taking in the cool stillness of the water and watching some other kids on the deep end as they practice diving. I try to relax but the soup isn’t sitting well on my stomach. I feel sick, still, and I’m half expecting and dreading the professor or Hank or Dr. Grey to show up and talk to me about what happened. I want them to, I want them to reassure me, but I also think that will make it more of a big deal in my mind and when no one comes, I just feel relieved. 

As we hang out, some of the kids come over to socialize with Louise and chat for a few minutes. Whenever they’re not within ear-shot, she’s apprising me of what she knows about them—where they came from and what their mutant abilities were, who they were dating, that kind of thing.

It gets late, after eleven o’clock already. On weekends, there’s technically lights out at 11:30, but when I start to fall asleep again on a pool lounge chair, Louise hauls me to my feet and we go back to the dorm. She makes me brush my teeth and change into pajamas and, despite my long nap earlier, I feel myself starting to fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

A few hours later, I have the nightmare for the first time.

I wake up not even sure where I am or what was happening, why I am so afraid. I sit straight up, trying to distinguish my surroundings by the moonlight coming in through the window. I see Louise's sleeping figure in the second bed. She's like an anchor, or a light in the fog; I'm at school, I'm safe here. 

After a minute, my heart slows then my breathing, and I'm left with a dull ache in my head.

I don't remember my dream at all, just that I was afraid, and that my fear was of Professor Xavier and others in the school. I brush it off, getting up to get a drink of water. After what happened with Dr. Grey, my subconscious was no doubt working triple overtime. It was fine, I am fine.

I try telling myself that and berate myself for acting like a child, afraid of nightmares, but it was a few hours pass before I can sleep again. 

…

I'm awake before Louise. The morning sunlight is low and dim, like even it thinks it's too early to be up on a weekend. But I've been living on the streets a long time, and you learn that you're most vulnerable when you're asleep.

Maybe that’s why I had a nightmare or whatever it was. I’m not used to sleeping that much, and certainly not at a stretch. It was far safer to catch catnaps during the day so you're not too tired at night when you live on the street. It was a hard balance to find. You don’t want to stay awake too much and then sleep too deeply. That was how I lost all my other clothes—some creep stole them right out of my bag when I was asleep on a bench at an abandoned bus station. It was broad daylight, not a lot of homeless folks around, but I guess I slept too long or too soundly. I woke up and saw this guy with his hands on my stuff; I was terrified and I think he knew it. What would have happened next I have no idea.

This crazy looking lady that smelled like cats and Chinese food rammed him with her cart when I screamed when he reached toward me to cover my mouth. The guy took off, like we were any match for him, but I don't think he was expecting a fight or witnesses. I tried to thank the lady but she mostly looked irritated and told me I better be more careful or I'll end up someone's cautionary tale. It was a moment I missed my parents so much I was shaking.

That was all behind me, but it still makes sleep complicated. I wonder how hard those habits will die. Maybe after a few months, I will be normal again. I don't know. Right now I don't feel like I will ever be normal anything.

I don't get out of bed. I pick up a book of Louise's off the floor and start reading it, waiting for her to wake up or for me to feel more hungry. The book is called Once and Future King and I’m absorbed in it when I hear Louise stir then get up to shower but by the time she’s done I’ve set the book aside and put on my headphones.

I’m still in bed when she’s dressed, laying with my eyes closed and listening to music on my walkman. One of the guys I met at the pool had asked me what music I like and when I explained I had a dead walkman he was shocked into silence before laughing his head off and promising to get me batteries, bringing them just before Louise and I had gone back to go to bed. I suppose I am the last teenager on the planet with a walkman. It was kind of him to track down the batteries for me, but I think he was also flirting with Louise by being nice to me, her friend. 

The music both presses on my pain and eases it.

Louise shakes my arm so I open my eyes. “Get up! Get dressed!” She says enthusiastically. “We have the whole day to hang out before Monday happens and so we have to hurry!” She beans me with a pillow in her exuberance when I’m not moving fast enough, eliciting a grumble then a laugh from me. I realize in that moment that I had not started to get dressed because I was afraid Louise was going to go off without me. It would have been beyond humiliating to be dressed and sitting there, nowhere to go. I feel a rush of happiness that my fear had been for nothing, but I could feel how awkward I was being about it too.

Even at my old school before the students there knew I wasn't like them, no one was like this toward me. I never had a sleepover or had someone tease me or touch me casually or stay with me when they didn’t have to. I’m not sure how to respond. I had expected to keep to myself here, to be politely ignored. I’m not sure what to do with Louise who clearly had no intention of ignoring me. I drag myself to the bathroom to get dressed.

The music has painfully reminded me of the girl who made me the tape, Krisma. She’s not like Louise, but probably the closest comparison among my classmates in Community. She was friendly, and there were people I had lunch with and talked to in class, but no one like Louise who took some kind of active interest in me.

Krisma was pretty, though, and vivacious and strong and I looked up to her in more ways than one. I’m completely opposite her in every way physically from my pasty skin and plain face and mousy hair and how small and puny I am. Personality wise, she was a much more powerful force, too. She never seemed to doubt herself; never asked me what we should do next, though she was polite and asked for my approval. She was independent in a way that I, who had even lived on the streets by myself for months, was not. She never seemed to rely on anyone for anything. 

I guess I was starting to understand there was a really big difference between being alone and being independent.

Lost in my thoughts, I don’t even realize why Louise is staring at me when I step out of the bathroom, ready to go, until a split second later when she goes to her closet and I feel so stupid, so embarrassed as I realize she’s holding some of her clothes for me to wear. I’m wearing my only clean clothes from the day before and I think she’s embarrassed of me, won’t be seen with me like this only when I see her expression she looks gentle, she looks sad. 

“It’s too small for me, but it will still be too big for you. Still.” 

I change without saying a word, choked with embarrassment. She grins and slings her arm around me. 

“You look good, Cal.” I give her a weak smile but do feel a little better. I feel different, cooler in her clothes than I ever would in any of mine. But it’s humiliating. I’m embarrassed that she was embarrassed, that she has to somehow lower her standards to be my friend. The Professor just should have given me my own room. 

Louise seems ignorant of my embarrassment and only seems determined to show me everything around the school. We mostly hang out in the house—in the library, in the rec room, helping me find all the classrooms, and then we spend time wandering the grounds. 

She introduces me to everyone we came into contact with. It seems like she knows every single person, which, I suppose there weren’t that many if you lived with them and went to school with them. But to me, it was overwhelming. It was more contact with anyone in a few hours than I’d had in months. I could go days or weeks without speaking to anyone when I was homeless.

I know I should be enjoying it, making new friends, but with each person I start to feel more anxious. I start to hear the mean voice in my head again, scoffing at my attempts to socialize. I begin to get paranoid that they won’t like me, that they’ll see through me, that they’ll realize I’m a fraud and a liar or just plain won’t like me even if they buy the lie.

“Oh hey! Hey!! Kitty!” Louise calls to one girl with her arms full of books. She was pretty, one of the older students closer to her twenties. She came over at Louise’s call, smiling broadly. 

“Hey there, Louise, how’s it going? Are you still going to help me in the greenhouse Thursday?”

Louise groans dramatically. “You know I hate getting my hands dirty,” she replies sourly. “But I’ll be there. I wanted to introduce you to Calamity. She’s new here.” 

“Hi,” Kitty says with a friendly smile, not offering a hand since she didn’t have one free. “I’m Kitty. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Thanks.”

“Where are you from?”

“Um, up north? Stillwater? How about you?”

“I’m from Illinois.”

“Oh, I don’t think I know anything about there. Is it nice?”

“It can be, but I don’t miss it.” Like so many students here, she goes serious when talking about home. She breaks from her gloominess and smiles again. “Nice to meet you. Bring her around, Louise.”

“I will.”

Louise waits until her friend has walked off quite a ways then tells me, “I’ve heard the craziest stories about that girl.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Like… she’s a legit member of the X-Men.”

“She seems young for it,” I say doubtfully. 

“Yeah, she is, but the funniest thing is she doesn’t get along with Professor Frost. Sparks _fly_ when they’re around each other, even though they’re civil enough.” 

I’m curious to hear that story. Louise rambles on about some of the other teachers and students, informing me that even though they were all in the same building, there are adult mutants that come for education and training under a different name. 

“They call it an ‘Institute for Higher Learning’ and some young mutants with crazy powers go there for special training, but not very often.”

“I mean… this place is big but not that big!”

“It’s all underground.”

“You’re teasing me!”

“I’m not!”

She continues to tell me more and more outlandish tales that I can’t quite believe or disbelieve when she steers us back to the dorm so she could finish some homework.

I’m not feeling tired but I doze, mentally exhausted from the bombardment of new names, faces, places. I try to imagine where I fit in all of it but it’s overwhelming; sleeping is easy.

I wake up a little groggy from my nap and vaguely anxious. I hadn’t dealt with the psychic barriers Dr. Grey had found and though there was really nothing I _could_ do, the fact they were there bothered me. All the new people worried me. I wondered how I would fit in and if I would be up to the course work after so long away. They were probably leagues ahead of me and I would have a lot of catching up to do.

Louise wants to hang out with some friends now she’s finished her homework but I decline. I’ve had more than enough social interaction for the day—as much as I appreciate it, I felt drained, weary. I take a walk on the grounds. It’s a mild day, pleasant now that the sun is going down. I find an old willow tree where no other students seemed to be hanging out.

I lay back on the grass, looking up at the sky through the branches of the tree above me. I start to relax in the dappled sunlight, absorbing the warmth and light on my skin. I allow myself to think I might be safe, finally. That I might have a future here. Education. Friends. Maybe, maybe. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, relaxing even more deeply. A few minutes later, I sense a shadow fall across my vision, blocking the low sunshine and I sit up, immediately tense, automatically afraid I had let my guard down. But I was not on the street and I was not in danger here.

It’s Hank McCoy. Louise had told me what he looks like when he’s not taking the suppressants; I had a hard time picturing him in his blue, furry alter ego. She said he often takes the suppressant when he has to leave the school to handle business. He looked as if he were on his way off campus, holding a briefcase and a jacket. I shade my eyes from the sunlight and smile up at him.

"Hey Calamity," he greets me."I hope I’m not disturbing you. How's your day been?"

"Um, good," 

"Good, good. I’m glad I ran into you, I wanted to tell you—you can pick up the textbooks you'll need for your classes in the library. They're behind the desk under your name."

"Oh... that's great, thanks."

"You're welcome. Also, Professor Xavier was wondering if you wanted to work in the library on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and a few hours a week in the mansion kitchen. With Bet. It would count toward credit as work experience and will give you a little pocket money."

"Oh. Oh! That'd be great. You don't have to pay me, though. You can apply it to my tuition or something."

"No need for that. We have generous donors for cases like yours."

"Really," I say skeptically. "Cases just like mine?"

That gets a small smile out of him. "Basically. Anyway. As part of your scholarship--"

"We're calling it that now?"

"—you have a small living allowance." He hands me a credit card. "This is to buy yourself some necessities and school supplies. One of the older students, Elixir, can drive you." 

I look at him in surprise. "I'm going shopping?" I squeak, utterly shocked. Hank nods, smiling a little again.

"That's right; just be back before dinner at 5:30 please."

"Um. Thank you. Really."

"Sure." He starts to walk away but comes back. "Calamity, Elixir has instructions to keep an eye on you, so please don't give him a hard time." 

"I wouldn't."

"I know. Just saying. If Ms. Louise is amenable, it may be good for you to take her along as well, for company," he adds, in seeming afterthought.

"Okay?" I’m puzzled not so much about what he was saying, but how serious he was taking everything.

Hank notices my scrutiny and sighs with a smile. "I don't want to have to remind you that there are people, maybe not good people, looking for you. Outside the school you are not as well protected, so be careful, that's all. Don't draw attention to yourself."

"I wasn't planning on it," I reply sardonically. I don’t understand why he’s worried. I spent months on the street, no one to protect me, and no one came for me to help me or harm me. A shopping trip wasn’t going to be a big deal.

He chuckles. "Yeah, I know, that's why I wasn't going to say anything. But I feel like you should be extra cautious. You're quite... vulnerable."

"Yeah," I mumble, abashed at the reminder that I had no powers—a reminder I didn’t really belong here. 

He tells me Elixir is planning on leaving in a half and hour so I hurry to find Louise and tell her the plan and ask her to come. She’s enthusiastic about heading off campus. She grabs my arm and pulls me back to our room so she can change clothes. 

"We're so lucky. They don't like us to leave very often."

"Why?" I ask curiously, fiddling with my hair in the mirror to try and be more presentable in public.

"The school is heavily protected, Cal. Not just security, but shielded,” Louise answers, watching me in the mirror.

"What do you mean shielded?"

"You know, all kinds. It's protected from all kinds of blasts, and telepathic attacks are blocked. There're all kinds of machines that just throw up interference for mutant abilities."

"How do students even use their powers then?"

"There're places built for it, but probably 80% of kids here are not really that powerful. They have abilities or aptitudes, and sometimes physical change. My whole point is that it's pretty secure here so they don't let us leave often."

"It didn't seem that secure to me. I just walked up."

She gives a burst of laughter. "Believe me, Calamity. You were allowed to, and you were being monitored the whole time. You're so naive." I smile in acknowledgment. I make a mental note to pick her brain about the school more and take notes in my notebook.

"Anyway, who's taking us?" Louise says, picking up her soccer bal and playing with it, bouncing it from knee to knee with perfect form.

"Elixir?" I tell her, not 100% sure I had his name right; it was odd, even by mutant standards. Louise lets the ball drop the the floor and stares at me. "What?"

She shrugs a little and grins. "Nothing. Elixir is really good-looking. You'll see."

"You two have a thing?" I teased.

She gave a small burst of laughter. "Nah, dear. He's not my type. I’m not exactly interested in a relationship at the moment."

I want badly to ask her about that, curious, but I don’t feel like we knew each other quite well enough yet. She’s so open and generous that it seems like we’ve been friends forever but really we’ve only known each other a few days.

“Doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the beauty around me, though,” she says as she stretches, giving me a grin. “Should be fun.”


	6. Chapter 6

We hurry and grab a quick snack at Louise’s insistence, but I don’t have much of an appetite. It’s stupid, but I’m actually feeling a little anxious about the excursion. I know Hank didn't mean to, or maybe he did, but it kind of spooks me a little bit, all his talk about people looking for me.

I try to brush it off, reminding myself that the X-Men live very different lives where there are threats around every corner. I know the reality is I don’t matter to anyone. I'm nobody and I don't know anything. My parents aren’t powerful. Government agents questioned me after the thing with my parents for probably three weeks, but I simply just didn't know anything. The social worker who kept placing me with different families was an agent I worked with from the first day—Agent Dana. I didn’t have answers to any of her questions about Mannik’s plans or the inner workings of Community’s hierarchy. I wasn’t worth telling anything to. 

Thinking about her for the first time in a long time, it occurs to me that I can probably tell _her_ where I am in case my parents did ever try to respond to my letters. But it’s been a long time since I tried to contact them, Agent Dana would probably not even remember who I am even if I am able to track her down by some miracle. I don’t even know her first name.

It’s probably best to make an entirely clean break. No one from that part of my life has made any effort to find me or help me. Because none of them care about me. I won’t do anything but humiliate myself by trying to contact them again.

"Chirrup, dear," Louise says as we walk toward the garage. She notices my quiet mood and misinterpreted it. "We'll have fun, I promise."

"Okay. Thanks. I don't really want to go." Though she hasn’t guessed what I’m thinking about, she’s right about my feelings about the trip in general.

"How come?? I would think you'd be super excited."

"Yeah. Me too. I mean, I would think that. But I'm not. You might not understand this, Louise, but I'm a plain jane, and going shopping just reminds me of it." I blush at confessing my insecurities to her, wondering if I should have kept my mouth shut. It must seem like I’m pretty ungrateful. 

"Says who, you're a plain jane?” She demands, offended on my behalf.

"Says the mirror, Louise. I'm not blind or delusional, usually," I reply with exasperation.

"Nah, you're a pretty girl. And anyway Calamity, there's one thing all of us have learned as mutants, it's that there's more to people than meets the eye. Yeah?" I   
give her a brief grin and nod and we go to meet Elixir.

At Community, nearly half the students had some kind of physical alteration of their appearance; some drastic, some subtle. I’m not too keen on judging by appearances anyway, so strange or different appearances never bothered or intrigued me much.

But I’ve never met anyone like Elixir.

He is golden.

His skin… it’s gold. Like a metallic, shining gold. 

"Hello, ladies," he says with a little smirk of a smile. I can't tell if he's shy or condescending. "I'll be your taxi service today. Elixir." He directs this to me, sticking out his hand. I reach out for it and Louise knocks his hand away.

"Knock it off,” she tells him in playful annoyance.

"What?" I say, while Elixir looks mildly offended and rubs his hand.

"Elixir has this thing with body chemistry, I don't trust him." She gives him a suspicious glare but it's clear she's teasing, maybe flirting a little bit.

"What kind of thing?" I peer up at him, a little embarrassed I almost maybe fell for something. He’s a good six or seven inches taller than my five foot five. He is just so beautiful—his eyes, a piercing pale blue; his hair so blonde it’s white in the bright sunshine, and his skin. I had to an almost irrepressible urge to just _touch_ it. I try to see _him_ through his mutation. He seems kind. Sad. Like he’d suffered, but he was strong. I sense a certain shyness, that, for all his good looks.

"Don’t let her impress you. I actually can’t do much yet." He gives me a nice smile.

“Dr. McCoy seems to think I have potential, but at the moment I’m only able to do a few things. Maybe a bit of healing. I could possibly turn your hair green if I’m in the right mood.”

"That seems weird."

He laughed. "Yeah, it is, isn't it? Anyway, I wasn't going to do anything." He offers me his hand again. I glance at Louise and she rolls her eyes and shrugs so I carefully take his hand, which is just as golden as the rest of him. Given his unique skin tone, I wondered if his skin would _feel_ different but his grasp was warm and firm but gentle and it gave me an odd squeeze in my stomach. 

"Calamity." I finally answer his introduction, giving him a shy smile.

"Good to meet you." He withdraws his hand and puts his sunglasses on. "I have instructions to have you home in one piece before dinner, so, shall we?" I climb into the back seat and Louise shrugs and jumps in the front seat, already fiddling with the radio dial despite a scowl from Elixir.

The nearest town is probably ten minutes away and it has a pretty good-sized mall. I get a small squirm of excitement after all when we park; it's been a long time since I've had anything new like this. I'm not at all fashionable; just a basic t-shirt and jeans is how I'm happiest. I know it's not going to impress anyone, but I wouldn't anyway, so, I might as well be comfortable, but I’m thankful that Louise had lent me something to wear today. _Really_ thankful, since meeting Elixer. 

As we walk in and study the map at the entrance to decide which shops to visit first, I try and discreetly observe Elixer for any signs of annoyance or embarrassment that he’s been saddled with taking two girls shopping for the day. If he is embarrassed about it, I can’t tell at all. We attract a few stares at his brilliant appearance but he doesn’t seem to notice or be bothered by any of it. He doesn’t seem impatient or annoyed.

There is something odd about his body language though, something I can’t quite read. He seems just slightly tense. He's got an easy kind of alertness, a kind of casual but consistent attention to our surroundings. Louise takes charge, clearly familiar with the mall even if only allowed to come here rarely, and she gets us through a couple of stores in record time, basic pieces of a wardrobe that could be worn with lots of things in lots of different situations. I’m beyond thankful for her input; there were things I was surprised I liked once she had me try them on. 

I refuse to let Elixer see me in any of the clothes she wants me to try on. It’s way too embarrassing, but I don’t even have to ask him to stay back. He stays close enough to keep an eye on us but far enough away to ignore our chatter and my reluctant modeling. 

Shoes are next and they, at least, are easy. He offers to help carry the shopping bags with two pairs of sneakers that fit me that I bought on sale. Louise steers us into the next store where a display catches her eye.

"They never make these in my size." She frowns, holding up a pair of jeans. "You have to get them so I can live through you."

"Ha. But they're kind of expensive."

"No, they're not, Calamity. You've been on a tight budget for too long,” she replies without looking at me. I flush a bit; I hadn’t realized she’s picked up on my anxiety every time we’re ringing up even my modest purchases. 

Elixer overhears and speaks up gently. "I know it's hard for you to understand, but the Professor wants you to be provided for. It's part of the school's mission, or something, to help mutants in your situation."

I get a sick, sad feeling and put the jeans back. "Maybe I'll come back for them." But I know I won't. I suddenly feel like I'm abusing the system or taking away from actual mutants that need stuff even more than me. I kind of feel ready to be done with shopping all of a sudden, but I know we need to make one more stop.

"There's um, maybe one more place I need to go," I say quietly to Louise.

"Where's that?"

"To get, you know, underthings." I annoy myself to no end by blushing.

"Oh, right. Elixir, we have to go get some personal items. You want to meet us in the food court or something?"

"I'll stay with you but I'll wait outside the store," he says easily, hanging up a jacket that had fallen off its hanger. He doesn't seem perturbed in the least. Is this guy for real or am I just easily impressed? I glance at Louise to see if she’s paying attention but she’s too busy looking at some clothes on our way out of the store.

Elixir sits on a bench with my shopping bags and Louise comes in with me, going to the pajama's section. "I think I need slippers. Don't you hate the carpet in the hallway? It's so nasty."

She hums and browses through the slippers while I look through other stuff. For some reason, I find her adorable at that moment. I tentatively try to understand what I'm feeling when I see her; I think it's affection. I think this is how friends feel. Even though we just met and I'm trying to be careful and I don't even know her that well, I undeniably am really thankful for her and Elixir being so friendly to me. It would have sucked to do this alone. As it is, I get an ache in my throat. The last time I'd done this was school clothes shopping with my mom and that almost seems like it happened to a different person. I swallow the lump and try to just enjoy the pleasant sensation of being befriended.

I find a few things to try on and head back to the dressing room. This will be the last thing and we can go back to school. I notice a rack of swimming suits, marked way down since summer was long over. There isn’t a ton of selection, but with the school having a pool I pretty much had to have something so I start looking through them.

From my periphery, I sense someone looking at the clothes on the same rack as me but I don't look up; miraculously, there’s a cute swimming suit my size. Then this hand grabs my wrist and this guy, he's got my arm and kind of twists it and I look up in his face and I don't even see anything about what he looks like for a second because all I can see is this menace, something dangerous and unkind, but then I kind of partially recognize that there's something familiar but I don't have any chance to even think it because I'm so startled and afraid. He's really strong and he yanks me toward him and I drop everything I'm holding and stumble off balance. I don't even scream it's all happening so fast.

The sudden fast motion catches her eye and Louise looks up at me. "Elixir!" She yells and he's by her side in a split second and other customers and employees all start to notice something is happening but none of them move, too stunned and not sure what's happening yet. I pull away from him as hard as I can, but he's strong, much stronger than me.

At the appearance of Louise and Elixir, the man twists my arm behind my back and puts his other hand around my throat. They were both walking really fast toward me but stopped. Elixir kind of pointed for Louise to move to block him from leaving.

"Move and I will hurt her," the man says, really calm. Not tense or heightened in any way, which probably scares me more than if he sounded aggressive or intimidating. He just sounds like he commented on the weather. Something tickled in my brain and I felt a headache starting, but I recognized the voice somehow... I've heard it before. In Community.

"If you hurt her, I will kill you," Elixir replies, not as calm; he sounds angry and when he clenches his fist I catch a glimpse of these little black things moving along his arms and I try to glance over at Louise but he's got a firm grip on my neck and I can't move, and it's actually kind of hard to breathe. When I move at all he squeezes tighter. The tight, squeezing sensation is painful as well as making it difficult to get a breath so I hold as still as I can, just looking at Elixir in desperation, afraid for myself and afraid for him and Louise. I see out of the corner of my eye the clerk pick up the phone.

"Drop the phone!" The man says, sharply, and she literally does drop it.

"I'm walking out of here. Move!" He says to Louise, dragging me with him.

"If you want me to move, come and make me." I hear her say in a very grim voice.

He doesn’t say anything to that but all of a sudden his fingers get really warm. In the next moment, the heat becomes uncomfortable, not burning me instantly but sure to do so with prolonged contact. Unable to see directly, I can see the reflection of a strange green light as if something is glowing. The pain becomes more intense where he’s grasping me by the neck and I make a sound in my fear and pain.

I think this guy expects Louise and Elixir to back off. It's what I would have done. Instead, the two of them split up and move quickly toward us.

It happens fast. I see Louise running towards us. He wrenches me around painfully to put me between her and him as a shield but with incredible speed and strength she sweeps both our legs out from under us and we both fall. I land on top of my assaultant; it loosens his grip on my neck but sends stabbing pain through the arm he’s holding, still grasped in an iron hold. Louise is fast— she grabs me by my shoulders and _yanks_ me up, out of his hold, glaring down at him with a murderous glare, shoving me behind her and backing away.

"Get her out of here, now!" Elixir tells her sharply, tossing her the car keys as he steps toward the man as Louise pushes me back. The assailant was already back on his feet, the strange green glow in his hands, and I really want her to stay and help him but she instantly obeys his command. She grabs my hand and pulls me without mercy, also grabbing the shopping bags on the way out, running us to the car. 

In my numb state of shock and fear, I’m incredulous that she grabbed our shopping bags. Belatedly, I remember I had stuck my wallet in one of the bags, it had papers in it that could lead back to the school, leaving them would have only further exposed us. I was thankful for her strength, her presence of mind which was in stark contrast to my own scattered thoughts. I can’t think of anything. My neck, my arm, my head hurt badly, I am still so afraid—

Louise is half-carrying me by now, throwing my arm over her shoulder when I’m not moving fast enough. She sets me down and opens the car door and I get in the back seat while Louise gets in the driver’s side. Louise pulls out her cell phone and I think she’s going to call the police or something but she just taps a few buttons and tucks it back in her pocket. She twists around to get a look at me and quickly but gently tipped back my chin and pulls my hand away from where I’m rubbing it and examines my neck. When I catch her eyes I see how I could be afraid of her because she has an intense look on her face, fierce and angry, and I remind myself it’s not directed at me.

"I want to tear that guy's head off. Who was he?" She asks in a low voice. I can only shake my head, too shaken and my throat swollen and hurting.

She starts the car and pulls around to the entrance, keeping the car in gear. It seems like we wait an eternity but probably less than 15 minutes pass before Elixir comes out, disheveled but apparently unscathed and Louise quickly puts the car in park then gets in the passenger seat so he can drive.

"Are you okay?" Louise asks quickly. "I already alerted the school."

"I'm all right," he assures her. He looks over at me, the intimidating look in his face melting into concern. "Are you okay, Calamity?" 

I nod, still shaking, still not trusting my voice.

"He's unconscious and the police are on their way," he tells us as he puts the car in gear. He tears out of the parking lot so fast my stomach lurches. It might have been scary, but I’m already scared. I want to get as far away as possible. "Calamity. Talk to me, please. Are you okay? What did he do to you? Did you know him?" Elixir glances at me in the rearview mirror.

"I don't, I don't know," I reply, my voice rasping. I squeeze my eyes against the memory of the feel of his hand, so strong, the heat, suffusing my airway. "His fingers hurt my neck." I don’t answer his last question, his familiarity like a dark shadow in my mind.

“Can’t you help her?” Louise asks anxiously.

Elixir shook his head jerkily. “Not without knowing what he did. I’m not an expert. If it were an emergency I would, but I don’t dare. Are you breathing all right?”

I nod. “I’m okay, let's just get home." The word slides out easily; the school had already become more of a home to me than any place I’d lived in recent memory. My stomach clenched in fear that I wouldn’t be safe there or this incident would change Charles’ mind about letting me stay.

Elixir drives fast, but expertly, like a movie, like he's done this kind of thing before. Evading kidnappers? With murderous intentions and weird green glowing pain fingers? There was no doubt in my mind now that the man intended to take me with him. I lean against the cool of the window, my neck still aching from the pressure and heat, a headache starting.

I ram down on my emotions as hard as I can but it was like someone shook a soda bottle to the point of explosiveness. I try to control my breathing but my breaths are coming too fast, I can’t slow them down. I do not want to cry again. I’m tired of being afraid. I am so tired of being afraid. I can’t stand one more minute of it, not one more. I felt things get kind of gray and fuzzy, probably because I was hyperventilating.

"Just get there, Elixir," Louise says tersely, observing my state and grabbing my hand. "No one is following us."

Elixir dutifully guns it, pushing the car up to a speed that would normally freak me out but I can’t feel any worry about it, I can’t feel Louise’s hand, I can’t, I can’t—

We’re back to the school in what seems like a moment. My mind is a riot of frustration, fear, anger, and pain. I want my mom. I want my dad. They are my parents; they should be here to keep me safe. They don't want me. They made me leave, then they left me. 

That crazy kidnapper guy, it was like he woke up all these ghosts in my brain of every creep and scary person I'd ever met from Community and the street and all these fosters that didn't want me or actively would hurt me if possible and then tangled in it all was Dr. Minde and the freak show stuff he did to me when there was still hope I could be something, do something, but I wasn't and I can't and still someone tried to hurt me they found me in a safe place—

I feel anxiety screaming in me like a caged and wounded animal clawing at my chest, my arms, my wrists—

"What happened to her?" I stumble out of the car and lay down on the grass a few feet away. I feel Louise's warm, brown hand with bright pink fingernails on my arm by my elbow and though I’m too upset to see or think about much, that touch did help ground me a little and I sit up, grasping my now pounding head. I give her a glance to reassure her.

I didn't hear a word Elixir answers, I didn't even know who asked. Vaguely I realize there’s a crowd gathering and Professor X was there, and Hank, and a bunch of teachers I haven’t even met yet, I don’t recognize, a bunch of students being shooed away. Everything is sped up and slowed down and magnified like a nightmare.

"Calamity you're having a panic attack." 

I don't know. I don't know if he's in my head or speaking to me but the scream is making its way out of my chest into my throat and my painful head, throat, and arm is the only thing I can feel.  
 _Calm your mind._

I pushed back as hard as I could. _NO! Don't touch me, don't even—_

The Professor’s telepathic link spikes panic through me like nothing else that has happened. I’m like a raw nerve; like a burn scraped with sandpaper, sensitive to everything.

"Jean, help her."

Not as polite as the professor, Jean did not knock, as it were, she was simply in my mind and she locked it down. All the rioting thoughts froze in place and I struggled against her as weak and helpless as a mouse under a lion's paw. Xavier was powerful, he probably could have done it, but Dr. Grey had much more finesse, from what I could understand of it. Her power was immense and looming even inside my mind. But though she could crush me, literally crush me, I could feel her strength in my mind the way I felt it went Louise carried me, she handled me without hurting me.

_You're all right. You're not harmed. You will not be harmed. You have no need to fear. You are safe._

I feel her words in my mind, and I feel the rightness of it. Through the distorted thoughts my emotions were causing, I know what she says is true. I become aware of my breathing, scraping against my raw throat, much too fast, and I take a deep breath to slow it down. And again. And again. Her words pierce the fear and the fear of being afraid. I also feel her, metaphorically, trail a finger along the mental block she encountered last time she was in my mind, testing it. It sent a jolt through me, painful, like hitting your funny bone and I moan.

"Don't hurt her!" I hear Elixir say mutedly, as if he hadn't meant to say the words out loud. Dr. Grey leaves my mind, leaving me feeling suddenly cold. My body registered the cool touch of a hand, then a gentle, kind embrace. Someone had put their arms around me and it felt like I was being shielded from the whole world, all of everything, just for a moment I felt unassailably safe. No one had hugged me in a long time.

"It's okay, we've got you." It was Dr. Grey's voice murmuring. I feel as if a little bird had fluttered into my domain, small and simple but wondrous. I tried to remember the last time someone had held me. I don't want to move; I just want to feel safe for a minute.

"I think I'm okay now," I say uncertainly after a few moments. My calmed thoughts settle on my friends. I look up at Elixer and Louise. “Did he hurt you? Did he hurt anyone in the store?"

"No, I'm not hurt.” He glances at Hank. “There was a scuffle when he tried to follow the girls. We were fighting and I… I think I made him pass out. He didn’t hurt anyone else." Hank shares a look with the Professor over this information.

"Calamity, we need to examine you for injuries--" Dr. Grey begins gently.

"Please," I beg, my heart rate spiking. "Not the medical bay, I can't."

"Where will you feel comfortable, child? My office?” Professor asks kindly. I hesitate but nod. 

Louise pulls me to my feet and I can't read her expression except that her face is closed off somehow, keeping what she is thinking and feeling from me. For her benefit or mine, I can't say, but her brow puckers with concern as she watches me.

"Lady, you're a magnet for problems." Her wild teal hair flies around her head with the breeze. I don’t answer. I have no answer. I’m tired. I think it won’t be long before she realizes I’m more trouble than I’m worth to be friends with. She puts her arm around me, under my arm, practically carrying me with one arm.

Again the comfy chair. It’s quiet here and none of the gathered spectators, I'm thankful for that. I stare around the familiar office and try to absorb what happened, but I’m finding it difficult to process, it seems so unreal. 

It's all a blur but fractions of it keep replaying in my mind, randomly, sharp then fuzzy, sped up and slow. The Professor and my parents, my friends looking dangerous and threatening, Dr. Minde and Dr. Gray, all my emotions and pain in a blender that makes it difficult to separate them from one another.

She is here now, Dr. Grey, pulling a stethoscope off her neck and placing it on my chest. She listens a moment then very gently tilts my chin and examines my neck, her cool fingers probing gently. I wince when she brushes where he had grasped me. 

"Strange," she murmurs. Hank leans over her shoulder to see.

"Possibly some sort of chemical burn?" He looked at me questioningly.

"It got really hot but I didn't feel it burn me. He was choking me. He grabbed me here too." I show them my arm. It looks strangely bruised, like an old bruise, green and yellowish. I shiver, remembering the feel of his burning grasp, unable to escape it. 

Dr. Grey and Hank are watching me closely, and Louise and Elixir are watching silently. I finally look up at Professor X. He too is watching me, gravely, his blue eyes steady on mine. 

"Louise and Elixir, I'm afraid I must ask you to wait in the hall a moment." Louise starts to protest and I look at him pleadingly, but he shakes his head. "I will call you back in a few minutes but I'd prefer you not be present just now. Do as I ask, please," he says firmly, but not unkind. They leave.

"Calamity, did you recognize the man who grabbed you?" Dr. Grey continues to examine my injuries, carefully probing my arm where it hurt from the fall.

"Yes," I say slowly. “I think.”

"Who is he?"

"I don't know, sir. It seems like I might have seen him in Community, but I can't remember him."

"Let me see," Dr. Grey says. "Let me look in your memories." The thought makes me shake and the chill I’ve felt since I arrived back at the school worsens. It’s so cold.

"It hurts so much when you do that," I tell her in a small voice.

"I won't touch the barriers, Calamity. It won't hurt."

I look at Xavier, and he nods slightly to encourage and support me. Seeing no other way to discover who my would-be kidnapper was, I figure this day can’t get any worse anyway. "Do I do anything?" I ask reluctantly. 

"No, just try to relax. I will be able to find the memory faster if you try not to fight me. Just keep your mind clear, maybe think about your breathing."

I try to comply, but I’m keyed up, tense. I feel her in my mind again and I wait for the pain, but it doesn't hurt. It feels like her touch, unexpectedly calming and cool. I can’t stop myself from being afraid, though, however much I despise it and myself for it.

"Calamity, you're resisting," Dr. Grey says softly, out loud. "Think of a garden with a wall, flowers all around. You smell the breeze full of their fragrance. You see a beautiful wooden door in the wall and you have the key in your hand." I picture it all as she speaks it, a garden, a door, a key. I’m not alone. "Now the door opens, easily, it leads to Community, but you stay in the garden. I will go, you stay here."

I didn't see her, exactly; she was like a candle lit in the bright sunshine.

She “walks” through the door, but the memory comes to _me_ then. I remember. "Cyprus. He was with Mannik. He had a thing with copper." I whisper. "He's strong."

"Copper?" Charles looks at Hank.

"Copper, hmm," Hank says thoughtfully. “It’s a softer element. It has antimicrobial properties. It does have some biological aspects, it has to do with respiration and iron uptake, I think."

"Yes!" I remember as he’s speaking. "He can affect people's breathing! He could have suffocated me, but he has to be touching you because there's such a small amount in the body, but he can manipulate it. Like Magneto, but just copper, and he's not as powerful." Charles leans forward. "And... and he's conductive to electricity.”

“That’s helpful,” Hank acknowledges, pulling out a notepad and writing something down.

"Hank please go talk to Elixir and Louise about what happened in more detail, including the route they took back. Please also alert the other teachers and those watching the perimeter."  
Hank nods, already walking to the door. He turns back, smiling at me encouragingly. "Next time maybe we'll do some shopping online, huh?"

I laugh a little then winced as Dr. Grey moved my arm, pain tingling through my shoulder. "Is that very painful?"

"Um, yeah, kind of."

"I don't think there's a break, but you probably twisted it, and if you're not feeling better we may need to do an MRI to make sure nothing was torn." She gently touches the marks on my arm. "I think these are okay. Copper is also involved with red blood cells; I think that's why the bruises look like this. They will heal. But I need to know if you have any other symptoms, no matter how insignificant they seem, it's very important, Calamity."

"Okay. I promise. I just feel really cold." She puts a hand to my head.

"You're getting another fever, milder today. Maybe you're ill."

"It-it started when you touched the barrier." I stutter. Even talking about the barrier is difficult, painful.

"That's true. It did." She looks at me thoughtfully. "In that case, it might be that Dr. Minde placed those barriers with the intention that their removal will cause you physical pain and illness."

"Why would he possibly do that?" I say and to my frustration, tears started falling from my eyes, silently, painfully. "Why was Cyprus even there? What could Mannik or Dr. Minde possibly want from me?"


	7. Chapter 7

"I know this is difficult, my dear, but there's no way of knowing what Dr. Minde has done, or why... Believe me, we are doing everything in our power to find out and to help you. Elixir was instructed to keep you safe and to bring you back immediately if there was danger, but others have been sent to investigate this man Cyprus and bring him here for questioning if possible."

"If he comes here, then he will know where I am. And... then Dr. Minde will know."

"I assure you, you are quite well protected. You are safe here, Calamity. Dr. Grey and I are going to figure out how to remove those barriers without harming you, and your safety is our top priority."

I attempt to swallow the lump in my throat. I have only been here a few days and it has not been the peaceful reprieve from fear and danger I had imagined. If anything I was safer, though hungrier, on the street. Like a ghost, like a demon, the thought floated in my brain that I’m not safe anywhere, except if I end it all. I’m tired. The promised oblivion of death didn’t sound all that terrifying. I don't want to kill myself exactly, but the relentlessness of my problems seems inescapable and at the moment all I can think of is how I don’t want to keep fighting forever. "I shouldn't have come here. No one found me when I was on the streets. No one wanted me. It was better that way."

Charles doesn’t answer my bleak pronouncement. He comes from behind his desk and very gently places a hand on my hand.

I raise my eyes to his, full of despair. He meets my gaze with warmth and sympathy.

Dr. Grey moved behind the Professor, catching my eye. 

“You’re tired of fighting, but now, you’re not fighting alone,” she says and swallow hard. “I know you’re afraid. We’re here to protect you. Give us a little more time, we’ll sort this out.” I try a small smile; their words and kindeness are so thoughtful and sincere yet I feel like it can’t quite reach me, like they don’t quite mean it. It can’t be meant for me when I’m so useless and unwanted. I despise myself for the pity party but still feel it’s the truth.

Dr. Grey gives me a few instructions on coming by the clinic later to get some blood drawn. She also makes sure I know to contact her if I have any new symptoms or get worse at all and I promise her I will. She steps out the door closes quietly. It’s just me and the Professor.

“I sense your terrible pain, Calamity,” he says, his eyes full of empathetic pain. “Just as Dr. Grey can ease your bodily pain, I can use my gifts to help ease your mental and emotional ones, if you’d like.”

I want to say no, I nearly do. But it’s true, I’m hurting, I’m hurting. The pain is intense and I know I can’t fight it on my own, nor can I endure it much longer. In my wildest dreams when I thought of coming here, this was _why._ To avail myself of the strength and powers and protection that these people could provide when I’m so utterly incapable of fixing it myself. I will do almost anything to just get the pain and fear to stop. I nod slowly.

The look on Charles’ face, thankful to me for letting him help me, kind, assuring, should make me feel better but it only makes me feel worse somehow. _This doesn’t mean he cares about you, not really. He cares about everyone, you’re not special. He’s not your father, even if he was, he’d leave you just like your dad did. He’ll abandon you too._ My own voice, mean, bitter, full of malice and hatred, is loud, inescapable.

I drop my head into my hands as if the words caused me physical pain, a headache; my body ached.

Charles is watching me, sensing my struggle.

"No, no. It's all right. You poor, poor girl." Slowly and carefully, a gently questioning look to assure that he has my permission, he puts his fingers to my temples. I feel him in my mind, like before, bringing calm and peace and comfort. I can feel it, but I can't, like a sunny day when you're sad, it doesn't quite reach you. I try. I do try.

_I know,_ he says in my mind, soothing. _You are trying, you’re doing well; it’s just that this is very difficult. I want you to think of the garden, where you were with Dr. Grey._

The garden appears readily, my awareness of his office swallowed up so I don’t even feel the chair I’m sitting in. The garden feels just as solid and real as the school had, and if the Professor still has his fingers to my temples, I don’t feel them any more. Instead of feeling as if I had been transported here from somewhere else, to me it seems that I’ve been here all along and I can only now truly see my surroundings. I look around; sky is gray, overcast, and the flowers around me are wilted, like they were too long in the sun without water. I look at them in consternation, walking over to a patch of sickly looking daisies. I kneel down on the grass to take a closer look, somehow feeling that their state was important. 

_What's wrong with them?_

Startled, I glance up; I was perhaps aware I was not alone here, I could feel the Professor’s presence but to _see_ him here still surpirses me. Professor Xavier reaches out and touches one of the sad flowers and I can feel the warmth of his body just as I could in the physical world, a strange thing. He’s different here, though; he’s walking, his body is strong and hale, presumably a reflection of his strength of mind. He’s different in other ways, too. He's younger, maybe, or less careworn. He looks stronger, healthier, I don't know, handsomer for looking, less stressed and it makes me think that maybe he has his own sorrows and troubles I know nothing about, but he still chooses to help me.

_It's true that I have felt many of the things you are feeling, Calamity,_ he says, surprising me again. I hadn't realized how closely he can know what I'm thinking and I get very red. _I too have known sorrow, grief. I have felt the pain of being abandoned by my friends._

His eyes are incredibly sad, it makes me tear up a bit. Xavier examines the flower again. _What do you think these flowers mean?_

_I don't know. Flowers are all mixed up in my mind with my mom. Does it mean anything?_ He shakes his head, unsure.

_You created this place as a safe space in your psyche, a place you feel comfortable communicating with telepaths. What happens here undoubtedly has meaning, but it escapes me. What does it mean to you?_

I shrug and frown, looking around the garden more attentively. _These flowers are weird._

Charles looked around more carefully. _How so? Do they exist in the real world or are they a product of your imagination?_

_No. They're real. I mean, they exist in real life. My mom grew some of them. A lot of them, actually. She had this thing with flowers and trees._

_Many of them seem unhealthy. Wilted. What might that mean?_

_I don't know. I don't understand._ But as I look around, I realize that not really all of them are wilted. _Professor, have you heard of the language of flowers?_

_No._

_It was a way for people to communicate in Victorian times when people didn't express their feelings out loud very much. It was mostly for people who were courting, you know, a way to discuss things when other people were around, a way for women to communicate with each other._

_That's fascinating. Do you think these flowers are using that language?_

_Maybe._

It’s surreal to find the flowers here. My mom taught me flower language but I haven’t even thought about it in months. It’s like finding a strange bruise; something as intimate as my own body but something happened to it and I wasn’t even aware of it. The flowers here mean something. 

_It's weird. Daisies. They... that means innocence. It can also mean delay, though, it depends on what else is with it in the bouquet._ I fall silent, looking at the odd garden. It doesn’t have normal flowers like roses and such, but ones like my mom grew: adonis, aloe, amaranthus, citron, gladiolus, marigolds, many more. I sit among them, refusing to think, holding the thought back.

_What is it? What do they mean?_ Charles asks, touching my shoulder, sensing what I knew but wouldn’t not admit to myself. I pick a flower with pale green leaves and stem with little clusters of tiny yellow buds.

_This is wormwood. It can mean, sorrowful parting, like when someone is sorry they don't return your love. That's what it would mean between two people courting. I don't know what it means here. It doesn’t have to mean anything, it’s just a flower. Jean Grey helped me make this place, it doesn’t mean anything, it’s just what I envisioned when she said picture a garden._ I feel sick to my stomach.

Charles considers me a moment, then stands, offering me a hand. _Let's leave here for now, Calamity. We need not linger if it’s upsetting you, I believe our time would be more constructive through the door._

_Here, I'm still Star, I think._ I look around and sure enough, I spot a small burst of white flowers not far from where we are. Star jasmine. I think that's what I was named after. It's an unobtrusive little flower, but they smell pretty. Maybe I wasn't always a cosmic joke. I am now, but I wasn't always. I carried their hopes and dreams and failed in spectacular fashion, not by anything I did, but simply because of who I am, something I had no control over and couldn't change. The little flowers are browned at the edges as if they too hadn't gotten watered in too long.

I take the Professor’s still proffered hand and pull myself up but I don’t go to the door I walk over to the little stars and touch one. I feel it, and I don't; it doesn't feel like anything. It's like a dream: real, and not real. More real than anything, and intangible.

_I don't understand._ I look up at the Professor, slightly disoriented by the fact that he’s much taller than me here, everything here is strange. _I don’t like these flowers, I don’t want them here. Why am I imagining them like this, why are they wilted?_

__

_They are an expression of your subconscious. They mean whatever you think they mean._

__

_There's a lot of sad flowers here. They mean sad things._

_And they are dying. Or they are injured._

_Yeah._ I look around and see the door Dr. Grey had gone through before. 

_But it's still a better place than in there._

_What's in there, then?_

_That's home. That's Community and Dr. Minde._

_Nothing here can hurt you, Star. They are memories._

_Memories hurt plenty._

_Yes, you're right._ Charles reaches out and gently touched the ivy around the door. _Memories can be painful. But what I mean is, there's nothing there that you and I together cannot face._

I feel braver at his kind words and anyway, I want to leave the garden now. I push open the door, forestalling further discussion.

I don't have a lot to say about the memories we saw there. We go to my house, and see my mom and dad, and we spend some time on the days after they found out about my powerlessness, and more time when I came back after they sent me away. 

It was like watching a movie, but really strange and warped, it would be loud then quiet and skip forward and backward, and some of it was really clear while others we watched as if through a fuzzy lens. Professor Xavier mostly watched the memories, watched me, but he asked me a few questions. There wasn't much need to talk. He knew exactly what I was thinking and feeling.

It should be painful; invasive. At times it is, especially when I don’t come across in the best light in my own mind, which is often. I don't know if he notices. He probably does. I certainly do. But, he doesn't say anything. It’s just, the me in my memories, she’s small. Warped looking. Kind of me but not me-- it was how I see myself. I guess I didn't realize before. I had been focused on my parents, I hadn't paid much attention to myself, but then. 

It’s an ordinary memory, nothing special, but my attention is drawn to memory me, sitting alone in my room listening to music. For some reason I feel terrible, I feel sick, I’m ready to be done. I want to leave and be back at school. But I walk over to her and study her.

It's not like I think of myself as ugly. My face is just ordinary, that is all. It's not beautiful, rather plain, but no one accused me of being ugly. But the me in my memories, the way I think about myself... she isn't pretty. She has all the features I see in the mirror, but she’s... repulsive, somehow. I feel Xavier standing behind me, watching me watch myself, it's surreal.

She looks... unlovable. She looks like someone you would find a different table rather than sit beside. She looks... I don't know. 

_Star,_ Xavier just quietly, sadly says my name, and it's probably the most  
heartbreaking thing I've ever heard, I can't clearly say why.

_I kind of hate her,_ I confess to him because it’s clear he knows already anyway. _Why can't she be better? Be more?_ A half dozen students from my school in Community appear in the bedroom around her as I remember them, how beautiful, how strong, how powerful they were. They stand there looking at me, and I look at them and me, it's not a pretty comparison. Memory me looks as wilted and weak as the dying flowers in the garden.

_Come on._ Charles takes my wrist really gently and leads me out of the room and back through the door to the garden. My memories of myself and the people from the school fade away but my misery persists. I’m humiliated. _Close your eyes, and when you open them again, you will be back in my office._

I close my eyes in the gray sunlight of the overcast garden and when I open them, I'm looking into Professor X's face. He's no longer the younger, vibrant, healthy man he was. He's back to his older, more careworn, more gentle looking self. Except now he looks unhappy. He’s slightly in my mind, not as deep as my memories anymore, just present, listening.

"Yes, I want to remain here a moment. It will make our communication easier," he answers my thoughts out loud. He’s silent for a long moment, and though I can feel a slight pressure I suppose is him keeping me from knowing all his thoughts, I can feel him thinking, feel his heart hurting. It’s a bizarre feeling, feeling what someone else feels at the same time I feel what I was feeling. But I don’t feel so alone.

"It will take a little getting used to. Yes, you are correct, I am shielding my thoughts from you, but only because I do want to order them a bit before we converse. My dear girl—" He stops abruptly and I feel his pain, like a wound, severe and sudden enough that it makes me clutch my chest in pain. It’s a strange, intense ache like sympathy pain.

"I apologize." The pain suddenly disappears. "Though you are not a mutant, you are certainly sensitive and empathetic, and I did not realize how much you would feel that. It was not my intent to hurt you more."

"It's okay Professor," I wipe my eyes where tears had started. "I didn't mean to hurt you either."

"There's no need to apologize, my dear. It is my privilege." As embarrassed and confused as this statement makes me feel, I'm grateful. I always felt the need to hide my pain from my parents, from other mutants at my school, for everyone, sure it would make them feel uncomfortable and drive them away. 

"Star... Calamity, as you must be, while you are in this school. There is much that I witnessed that I feel we should discuss, that might be pertinent to what happened to you when you were shopping today. However. I only have a theory, one I must discuss with Hank and Dr. Grey before I bring it to you. I want you to know that it is our priority."

"Um. Okay." I'm only probably 5% on what any of those memories could have to do  
with Cyprus, but I do realize the Professor is quite a bit more intelligent than I am, and I will have to trust him on it.

"There is something I can share with you, however. I am hoping... very much hoping... that I can show you something that may ease a bit of your pain. I understand, more than you can know, how hurt you feel over your parent's rejection. However, Calamity, I wish to point out that your reconnection and acceptance by your houseparents was horribly, tragically cut short by their arrest. From your memories, I feel that perhaps they would have mended things with you. Do you think?"

"I don’t know. Maybe, yeah," I whisper. I hadn't thought of it. But yeah. Yeah, they might have. This didn’t make their rejection hurt any less but… it did help. It feels less tight, restricted in my heart. 

"Now, my dear girl. My poor, hurt girl. I could not help but notice how you saw yourself. Allow me to show you how it is that I perceive you." I lift my eyes, brow furrowed, questioning. "Close your eyes, Calamity," he instructs gently, raising his fingers to his temple.

I am in a beautiful, blooming garden. And I see me. I almost don’t recognize myself, but it’s my features. I looked nearly pretty, smiling, the sunlight on my face; my untamable hair, my brown eyes, my too thin body. I recognize all that. What took me a moment, was the warmth in my eyes, the kindness, the laughter. I see my own pain but instead of shame and guilt and fear, I see my face opened up in intelligence, interest, concern for others. I’m lovely, generous.

"That can't be. I’m not like this!” I cry.

"You are. Just. Like. This. You just don't see it, Calamity." His voice is gentle and full of sympathy, but also entreaty. "Study her, and when you ponder yourself, give yourself some of the same allowances and sympathies that you so readily give to others. Will you try?"

"Yes sir," I whisper, opening my eyes, startled slightly as I always am at how intensely bright blue his eyes are. It must be a mutation. "Thank you, sir."

"Calamity. Thank you. Now I sense that your friends are waiting in the hall for you, eager to turn you to Bet's ministrations of comfort food."

Only twenty minutes have passed. I stand slowly, the aches of my physical body reasserting themselves. I feel him in my mind, slightly, just the barest presence, and wondered if it would be appropriate to give him a hug. In answer, he holds out his hand, and I take it.

He pulls me down in a gentle embrace. "Your strength is more than you know, Calamity. There is more to you that you understand." He releases the embrace and leaves my mind, and I walk out to where Louise and Elixir are still waiting

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment!


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